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m | Amendments to the easement law which went into effect in January of 2011 states that “the nonagricultural qualities that will be protected by the easement are inherent to the easement property”, meaning that non-agricultural qualities such as open space character may also be taken into account. If the landowner donates the easement, tax benefits may ensue, but probably will not if the owner accepts payment for the easement (from the government or a trust).
The value of the easement would be calculated by determining the difference between the fair market value and the restricted value of the property. This would depend on factors such as how vulnerable the property currently is to being developed. In 2004-2006, the latest years for which data is available, San Diego County lost nearly 6500 acres of farmland to urbanization. Across Southern California, most newly urbanized land consisted of single-family homes located at the periphery of existing cities. Potrero, 44 miles east from central San Diego and adjoining Cleveland National Forest, is a prime example of a community that well-off people from the city like to move to for its “rural charm, city close” qualities. The appraisal guidelines, when determining how vulnerable a property is to being developed, takes into account “the likelihood of...subdivision, based upon recent comparable actions that have been taken by the relevant local government jurisdiction”. An example of what may happen to Potrero may be found about 22 miles away, where a golf course subdivision was built in 1991 in a similarly small, formerly agricultural community (Jamul). According to two local real estate websites, average house prices in Jamul are over $400,000, and that is down from a high of over $700,000 at the height of the real estate bubble!
Based on this information and the likelihood that other semi-rural towns near San Diego will someday follow Jamul's path into subdivision status, it would seem worthwhile for the owner of the Potrero farm to consider having it appraised for the easement program. There could be a substantial profit at the time of the sale, or significant tax benefits if the landowner chose to donate all or part of the property to the easement holder.
The land is not immediately eligible for the Williamson Act, due to not being farmland that is considered prime, unique, or of local or statewide importance. However, it is very close to a small area of important farmland which is already part of a county agricultural preserve. Every two years the maps are updated with the input of entities including environmental groups, water districts, and the Farm Bureau. If the landowner contacted the mapping group and made a convincing case, parties interested in maintaining open and agricultural space might endorse changing the designation of this piece of property to locally important farmland, which would open the path to applying for the Williamson Act's tax benefits.
| 33 | English | female | Bachelor's | Lab tech | N,N,N,N,N |
m | Excessive rangeland vegetation (especially annuals) degrades the habitat through shading and resulting litter accumulation, as well as dense vegetation inhibiting the lizards' mobility and disrupting their camouflage. Human caused habitat loss, primarily from conversion of rangeland to agricultural use, collecting for pets, and pesticide use to control fire ants are major reasons for the disappearance of Texas horned lizards throughout the Southwest.
Central Asia is a mix of steppe, mountains, and deserts. Once it also included tallgrass prairie but, as in the United States, it was plowed under long ago. The region contains vast expanses of shrubland and grassland. The rangelands of Central Asia include these former Soviet countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. There are a number of different definitions for this region depending on who is discussing it. For this presentation Afghanistan is included although that is not always the case.
There are many factors the five former USSR countries have in common. Agriculture was greatly increased in many places during the 1950's as Russia collectivized farms and pastures and demanded that certain crops be produced, especially cotton. This resulted in water being diverted for irrigation; heavy chemical use; and pasture degradation due to overgrazing. All of these factors have contributed to widespread desertification in the area as soil became too salty to support grazing or crops. Things have changed since the breakup of the Soviet Union but many environmental problems remain.
The separate countries are a convenient way of dividing up the area for description purposes, but most ecosystem characteristics obviously don't follow national boundaries. They can all be thought of as different aspects of the same large region commonly called the Turanian ecoregion. Many species occur in most or all of the Central Asian countries. Artemisia species are particularly ubiquitous.
There is a wide variety of soil type and parent matter in Central Asia. However, soils occur in patterns that are common across national boundaries. Gypsisols, light-colored soils with high gypsum content are common. The most widely distributed soil type in the Turanian bioregion is sierozem, a grayish-brown sandy-loam to loam textured soil. Large parts of Central Asia are also made up of sandy desert soil. The particularly fertile areas such as the northern Kazakh plains show chernozem type soil, or black earth.
Kazakhstan covers 2,700,000 sq km, almost four times the size of Texas. One third of the country is covered by the Kazakh Steppe, the world's largest dry steppe region. The rest of the country is largely desert and mountains. High atmospheric pressure in this area results in hot, dry summers and cold winters with little snow. Most of the 250-300 mm of precipitation each year occurs during the spring.
The Kazakh Steppe varies from a completely flat plain to gently rolling hills. There are many closed basins with salt accumulation from temporary lakes. Deep depressions may also contain meadows and patches of forest. The vegetation is adapted to drought, fire, and grazing. | 33 | English | female | Bachelor's | Lab tech | N,N,N,N,N |
m | In recent years, more and more people have become interested in preventing extinction of plants and animals and maintaining the health of the environment, both for reasons of personal interest and because ecosystems provide many valuable services to humans (providing oxygen and fresh water, clean air, etc.). There are many threats to wildlife which an understanding of vegetation distribution can help to mitigate. For example, when setting aside habitat for a particular species of animal, knowing what vegetation types are required is critical. Protecting a large tract of sagebrush won't necessarily benefit game birds unless it is interspersed with shrubland or woodland to provide seasonal cover and food, which vary by species. Understanding how an area may be expected to respond to grazing can improve management; the southern mixed prairie vegetation type is adapted to grazing, but long-term heavy grazing is likely to alter the balance of short and tall grasses, which in turn affects the quality of habitat for any species of wildlife that requires tall grass for cover.
Additionally, the susceptibility of an ecosystem to invasive species is partly determined by vegetation type, which in turn is largely determined by climate. If there is going to be development in an area that includes both Ponderosa pine and shortgrass steppe, disturbance could be concentrated in the more invasive-resistant grassland. Similarly, fire suppression activities could be increased in ecosystems like sagebrush steppe which become more vulnerable to invasive grasses when fire return interval is too short, while decreasing fire suppression in Great Basin sage to help prevent its conversion to pinon-juniper woodland. A greater understanding of vegetation type and climate helps land managers to maximize benefits to native wildlife and target habitat protection to the most critical areas.
There are few certainties about the climate change associated with increased global temperature, but one thing is for sure: any change in climate will impact vegetation type and distribution. We currently have a fairly good idea of what to expect in terms of precipitation and temperature in crop-growing areas, but that will change. As the human population increases, ever more food needs to be produced. It is thought that the global population will top 8 billion by 2030, and as standards of living improve throughout the world and people consume more food (especially meat), food production will need to keep up. However, most of the arable land in the world has already been cultivated. What remains is marginal for crops, or is currently covered by rainforest, and most countries are now attempting to limit the destruction of their forest resources. Therefore, food production needs to become more efficient so greater yields can be gotten from the same amount of land, or even less land, as a growing population takes up more living space. But with climate change, land that is productive may become too arid or too warm for the crops currently grown there. | 33 | English | female | Bachelor's | Lab tech | N,N,N,N,N |
m | A 2003 capture study in southeastern Colorado found that lizards were active at air temperatures of 21 to 42oC (average 30oC) with the greatest number captured between 29 to 31oC. The study also found that the dominant cover types were grasses (46%) and bare ground (43%). The remaining cover came from litter (5%), forbs (5%), and shrubs (1%). Buffalo grass and blue grama were the dominant grasses at every site with sandsage, yucca, and cactus being the dominant shrubs.
The diet of the Texas horned lizard consists primarily (85% or more) of harvester ants supplemented with other insects. Lizards can consume up to 200 ants per day. During the hotter months, they generally eat in the morning, after the sun has brought up their temperature, and in the evening after sundown. The 2003 study mentioned above found that during the cooler temperatures in April, May, and September, the lizards were active during the day. Since harvester ants require seeds for food, they tend to make their mounds in high seed producing areas. Thus, Texas horned lizards are often found in open patches of less dense vegetation adjacent to the ants mounds. Invasive red fire ants and Argentine ants are major causes of harvester ant decline in other parts of the Southwest and efforts to control their spread have so far not been very effective. Availability of water may be a limiting factor for one or both of these species, so not introducing external water sources such as irrigation would be a sensible management decision to benefit the harvester ant population.
According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, there are 25 ecological sites occurring in Baca County, Colorado. While the ecological site descriptions don't specifically list Texas horned lizard, 13 are mentioned as supporting short-horned lizards (Phrynosoma douglasi). These are loamy, loamy slopes, clayey, siltstone plains, shallow siltstone, gravel breaks, shale breaks, salt flat, sandy salt flat, salt meadow, Plains swale, saline overflow, and overflow. Plant communities of interest within these ecological sites are generally flat-lying blue grama and buffalograss sod or bare ground communities which can contain cactus or low, sparse brush. Average air temperatures in Baca County are also appropriate for Texas horned lizard habitat, with suitable temperatures occurring in June, July, August, and early September.
In addition to meeting the needs of harvester ants by having areas with relatively high density of grasses and therefore the seed the ants need, the area has a wide variety of vegetation. The vegetation types found in Baca County, from farm ground to blue grama / buffalo grass and continuous bare ground, are good for meeting the needs of Texas horned toads themselves, who require light vegetation to move around near these ant populations and areas that are bare to help them with their temperature regulation through thermal regulation.
A mixture of mid to early late seral stages would be appropriate to support harvester ants and thus Texas horned lizards. The 46/43 split between blue grama/buffalograss sod and bare ground indicate long term continuous grazing. | 33 | English | female | Bachelor's | Lab tech | N,N,N,N,N |
m | This would require some other preparations like handraising or otherwise habituating the animals to people so they wouldn't be totally stressed out by being moved in and out of the enclosures. Handraising them would also allow them to be fed the target grass species from a young age to hopefully influence their food choices later. The reason I think this is a realistic experiment is because it could be framed as a pro-conservation move by the landowner, and it could also potentially be a grant-funded postdoc type of project. It would not be something that I would think is a good idea for wider use but since this property contains up to .4% of all remaining coastal sage scrub habitat, a positive impact on that area alone would not be inconsiderable.
The first stop is at a Mediterranean grassland. Nearly all of the native Southern California grassland which was dominated by perennials has been replaced with invasive annual grasses. The elevation is around 300 feet above sea level and the climate is Mediterranean or semi-arid warm steppe in the Koppen classification. Temperatures are mild and the weather is mostly sunny year round. An average of 300 mm of precipitation falls each year mostly between December and March. Plants here are drought-adapted since most of the year has very little rain. They also tend to be somewhat adapted to fire of varying frequencies.
This is Mission Trails Regional Park. There are two large sections of grassland in the park, mostly surrounded by sage scrub and chaparral communities. Park literature attributes the non-native grasslands to past overgrazing. Once the native ecosystem is disturbed and annual grasses gain a foothold they provide fuel for more frequent and faster-moving fires and then quickly grow in the burned areas depriving the newly sprouting shrubs of sunlight and water. The area that makes up Mission Trails Park is known to have been settled by the Spanish in the 1760's so there has been plenty of opportunity for the introduction of European grasses and disruption of native plant communities.
Visible in the background are hills covered with sage scrub and chaparral; sycamore and oak trees are visible in middle ground where the San Diego River provides a corridor of riparian habitat.
Here is where the non-native grasslands transition to sage scrub and chaparral communities. The altitude increases on these hills to about 650 feet. It appears that the grassland gives way to native shrubs more and more as the altitude increases. I don't know why this would be but some factors that I thought might contribute to this phenomenon are: grass seeds are less likely to be dispersed uphill than downhill; cattle and human disturbance may have been concentrated at the lower altitudes because it they were easier to access and closer to the river. | 33 | English | female | Bachelor's | Lab tech | N,N,N,N,N |
m |
Additionally looking at the grassland area on the USDA Web Soil Survey website it appears that much of the area is made up of Diablo-Olivenhain complex (clay and cobbly loam) with 9 to 30 percent slope; the adjacent hillsides are largely fine sandy loam with 30 to 70 percent slope. In this picture the oval on the left encircles an area of sage and chaparral above the grassland which is largely contained in the oval on the right. The broad difference in soils can be seen. Both soils have good drainage. I don't know exactly how the soil type might affect the vegetation in this instance but the grassland may also be in the flood plain of the San Diego River which I would think might affect the mineral composition of the soil.
The photo on the left shows the Mission Trails Park grassland shortly after a fire in 2003 from a very similar perspective to my recent picture on the right. This was the most recent major disruption in the area and it affected both grassland and shrubland in the park. Much of the chaparral vegetation is fire-adapted and some like Ceaonothus actually requires heat for the seed to germinate. According to the park website all areas have recovered well from the fire.
Historical records indicate that aside from fire human disturbances have been frequent in the area. The native Kumeyaay people lived in villages along the river and would burn underbrush in the oak woodland to stimulate growth and attract deer. Later the Spanish built a dam across the river here. There was also a World War II-era training camp north of the river which later became a bombing range. Because the higher elevations are more rugged and inaccessible it seems probable that more human activity was concentrated around the river and the grassland area but I can't know that for sure. If this is a fact then it would make sense that more frequent disturbances would have introduced more foreign grass seeds and provided more opportunity for them to establish themselves.
As mentioned above the grassland occurs in an area with significantly less slope than the sage scrub and chaparral at slightly higher elevations.
Although most people don't think about it very often, vegetation and the factors that influence its distribution affect almost every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat to the wood that builds our houses and the paper we write on. In the future climate change, biofuels, and the dietary demands of a growing population will make these effects even more obvious. Creating more experts in this field is in Colorado's interest to help keep our state and nation competitive and successful in a changing world.
I will examine two major areas in which knowledge of global vegetation types and distribution would benefit us: conservation of wildlife, and dealing with climate change.
| 33 | English | female | Bachelor's | Lab tech | N,N,N,N,N |
m | Characteristic plant species include Stipa, Artemisia, and Festuca species. Native animals include many species of rodents (voles, mice, lemmings) wolves, foxes, polecats, and the critically endangered saiga antelope. Bodies of water in the steppe are important migratory stops for birds. Some of the rare bird species who depend on this ecosystem are the Pallas' fish-eagle and the MacQueen's bustard.
Kazakhstan's grasslands were largely plowed for agriculture or heavily altered by overgrazing in the 1950's under the Soviets. As in other parts of the world, most of what remains (17%-36%) is mostly on hill slopes or soil that is too sandy or salty for crop production. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, livestock production actually decreased in the Kazakh Steppe, and a 2003 report found that most rangeland was in good and improving condition.
Uzbekistan is approximately the size of California at 447,000 sq km. Three-quarters is covered by sandy desert, semi-arid grassland, and shrubland. Around 80% of the country is mostly flat while the east becomes mountainous. There are more than five thousand species of vascular plants in Uzbekistan. The desert is divided into three types which vary greatly in amount of salt in the soil: gypsum, sandy, and saline.
Uzbekistan has severe environmental problems. The Aral Sea, which lies largely in Uzbekistan, is an extreme example of the consequences of environmental mismanagement. It once covered 68,000 sq km and supported a thriving fishing industry. In the 1960's the Soviets diverted the two major rivers feeding the Aral Sea as part of a project to make Uzbekistan a major cotton producer. It is now divided into three small lakes which take up 10% of its original area, and like most water in the area is badly polluted with agricultural chemicals. This has devastated the local economy and made the area's climate drier and more extreme. As the water disappears, it exposes the salty lakebed which is blown into the air, causing massive salt and dust storms. Many tons of salt are carried up to hundreds of miles away every year. In fact, some scientists believe the destruction of the Aral Sea has directly caused a 5% increase in particulate matter in Earth's atmosphere.
The salty soil, laden with toxic chemicals from agriculture and weapons testing, settles in the surrounding area, increasing salinity and contributing to desertification, as well as causing serious health problems in the local people. Kazakhstan has built dams and attempted to increase water flow to the northern part of the Aral Sea with some success. However, the southern part in poorer Uzbekistan has yet to benefit from these efforts.
Turkmenistan is slightly larger than Uzbekistan at 488,000 sq km.It has a continental climate and is as much as 90% covered by subtropical sandy desert and shrubland, with hot, dry summers and mild dry winters. Most precipitation falls between January and May. Mammals include goitered gazelle, honey badger, and sand cat (Felis marmorata). | 33 | English | female | Bachelor's | Lab tech | N,N,N,N,N |
m | However, upon further investigation, it appears that San Diego County has placed a moratorium on new Williamson Act contracts due to not receiving as much money as expected from the state to compensate for the decrease in property taxes.
Landowners in rural San Diego County have many options to use their property for income while also creating and maintaining wildlife habitat and open space. One good option is organic farming, which also opens up opportunities for tours, birdwatching, and other recreational activities. There are a variety of governmental programs which are available to help landowners become organic farmers.
Of the programs I found on the internet, two would be ruled out from the start because the land was not farmed in the early 2000's. The land is not currently eligible for the Williamson Act either, although if it were approved for inclusion in a nearby agricultural preserve, it could become eligible; however, San Diego County has placed a moratorium on Williamson Act initiations, so this option is also out.
Eligibility would be most likely for the two Natural Resource Conservation Service-administered programs. If approved, these programs could provide a substantial portion of the funds, as well as technical assistance, for establishing an organic farm, especially since the landowner is a “beginning farmer”.
Potentially the most lucrative program, a conservation easement through the California Farmland Conservancy, would require an expensive appraisal, and the land must meet certain criteria for being in danger of being developed. Based on prices and development patterns in the surrounding communities, the landowner might successfully apply for an easement at some point in the future, especially after the housing market improves.
As described above, applying for these programs requires extensive form-filling and documentation. Aside from the approximately $3500 for easement appraisal, financial costs for the application process are mostly reimbursable, but the time and energy are not. A landowner would need to be patient enough to wade through mountains of paperwork, and have enough scheduling flexibility for multiple trips to the local Natural Resource Conservation Service office and extensive planning with agency personnel. If approved for any of the programs, he or she would also give up a fair amount of autonomy in making land management decisions. There would also be ongoing monitoring which would require more time and coordination with the agencies involved.
However, for a landowner whose goals are already largely in line with those of these government programs (conservation of agricultural land, water, habitat, and open space), it could be well worth the time and effort to get financial help with instituting and maintaining sustainable practices. An inexperienced farmer in particular could also gain from the technical expertise of TechReg providers. As one might expect for government programs, there are significant benefits available for somebody with the patience to learn how the system works, keep lots of detailed records, and jump through various bureaucratic hoops.
Texas horned lizards prefer dry, flat areas with sparse vegetation. | 33 | English | female | Bachelor's | Lab tech | N,N,N,N,N |
m | The farmer must then keep abreast of changes to the program, and can obtain information about regulations and compliance, using the Plan Handbook which is downloadable for free from the USDA's website.
As described in the Introduction, many of the species likely to be living in the Potrero area fall into the Wildlife Initiative Program's categories of interest, increasing the likelihood of the landowner receiving financial assistance. This property would also have a good chance of qualifying for parts of the Wildlife Habitat Incentive program because of the large number of species of concern in the area.
Both programs are administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Because the landowner in this scenario is a beginning farmer (someone who has either never operated a farm or ranch, or has not operated one for ten consecutive years), such programs may pay a higher percentage of the costs associated with implementing conservation measures. To apply for both of these programs, the landowner must: establish farm records with the USDA; obtain a tax ID number for the business; demonstrate eligibility for Beginning Farmer status; and complete a Conservation Program Application.
To qualify for the Organic Program, the farmer must also contact one of a list of approved certifiers such as California Certified Organic Farmers and prepare an Organic System Plan. This website has a minimum of 17 sections which must be filled out to create a plan which include detailed descriptions of the farmer's crops, rotation practice, pest management, monitoring plans, and everything else which would affect the farm's organic status. Once the plan is approved by the certifying agency, the landowner may apply to be certified organic, which would cost approximately $575 ($275 for the application fee plus $300 for a farm with organic production value between $20,000 and $50,000 yearly). This could be reimbursed by filling out the Federal Organic Cost Share Application.
Once the farm has been certified organic, the Organic Initiative part of the application may be filled out. This includes basic eligibility questions as well as two pages of questions about the specific benefits of the landowner's plans, which are ranked on a points system. A similar (but much longer) application needs to be filled out for the Wildlife Initiative program.
An individual landowner may not apply for grants from the California Farmland Conservancy Program, but may apply for an agricultural easement. The first step in this process would be to get the land appraised. According to the appraisal guidelines, this is an unusually challenging and detailed form of appraisal. Researching several local land appraisal services yielded a range of $500-$3500. For a property of this size, $3500 is probably closer to the actual cost. After obtaining an appraisal, the landowner would submit an application for the government or a local land trust to purchase an easement on the property. From then on, it could only be used for practices that do not damage the land or its agricultural potential, such as by degrading the soil or promoting erosion. | 33 | English | female | Bachelor's | Lab tech | N,N,N,N,N |
y | The church performed Santeria rituals, including those involving animal sacrifice, and the city enacted health codes to stop the practice, as a guise for outlawing the church outright. In Hialeah, the city’s intent was clear: the ordinances were found to pertain specifically to the ritualistic practices of the church.
Further, espousal of one’s faith should not meet with prosecution. If a religion wishes to proselytize its beliefs and claim a protected practice, it may do so without state interference. This concept, in concert with the legalization of plural marriage, would assist in moving groups such as the FLDS into further dialogue and contact with society at large.
The Old Order Amish are a separatist group, prevalent in Pennsylvania, Ohio and other Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states. The Amish stress their simplicity and religion above all else, and actively avoid contact with the outside world, to the point of not taking electricity from a power grid, and allowing their church to police their population. Amish people will cooperate on a limited basis with law enforcement, but prefer to mete out their own punishments via church practices wherever possible. They also prefer using home remedies, but will avail themselves of modern hospitals and doctors when necessary, relying upon mutual aid funds and churches in order to pay the hospital bills.
The primary case as relates to the First Amendment involving the Amish is Wisconsin v. Yoder. In that case, the Amish were granted an exemption from compulsory public education due to their lifestyle and religious practices.
In the FLDS, plural marriage is encouraged, and men are to marry at least three wives in order to guarantee their place in heaven. In its polygamy practice, the FLDS also adheres to what it calls the Law of Placing, wherein a young woman of marriageable age is assigned a husband by revelation from God to the leader of the fundamentalist group, who is regarded as a prophet. The definition of “marriageable” according to the church is unknown, but anecdotal evidence and personal testimony from former members as well as investigative journalists suggest the onset of puberty and obvious signs of physical maturity and the ability to bear children as indicative of “marriageable age.” Illegal weddings involving girls of fourteen and fifteen are claimed to have been commonplace.
Balancing the needs of religious practice in both of these separatist groups with the needs of the state and society as a whole requires encouragement of a more consistent and open relationship. In order to legitimately accommodate arranged or plural marriage within the FLDS, its members must first agree to submit to state laws, and in order to foster that relationship, the state must prove itself trustworthy. If plural marriage were allowed, the FLDS might potentially agree to register all births, deaths and vital statistics with the proper authorities, acquiesce to legally registered nuptial contracts for each marriage, enforce limitations on parental consent and child age at the time of marriage in accordance with state sanction, and forbid marriage under the age of parental consent.
| 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y | If a negotiation is suffering due to a stereotype, especially one regarding an attribute as immutable as gender or race, then the target of the stereotype needs to be strong enough to remove themselves from the negotiation, rather than forging ahead at all cost.
Up to the late twentieth century, surrogacy without physical sexual contact (and presumably, its residual emotional effect on a marriage or relationship) was thought impossible. For the last thirty to forty years, the use of assisted reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilization, intrauterine insemination, and gamete donation has opened up a world of fertility to couples who would have otherwise remained barren or dependent upon traditional adoption procedures in order to become parents. These technologies are especially controversial when used in conjunction with a surrogate, or gestational carrier. A multitude of legal issues are raised when a couple asks a third party to conceive, carry, and bear a child on their behalf. In fact, potential parents often find themselves beyond the legal pale in most states if they determine that they wish to use a surrogate to achieve parenthood.
This paper will address the legal status and rights of both traditional and gestational surrogates, specifically with regard to their contractual rights. In the United States, there are a number of conflicting attitudes, statutes, and other factors which contribute to a surrogate’s status at any given time and in any given place in the country. Society in general seems to be more accepting of surrogacy in general, however lawmakers have been slow and inconsistent in codifying or regulating surrogacy as a practice consistent with legitimate family building. From traditional moral ideals to the idea of bodily integrity, a number of issues arise in this particular policy debate. Discussion over a surrogate’s rights is often left behind, favoring the rights of both the intended parents and the children resultant from the arrangement.
American lawmakers must strive to clear up the gray areas that arise at the crossroads that is assisted reproductive technology law. Societal beliefs notwithstanding, basic legal issues such as contract theory, application of family codes, and the right to privacy of a surrogate are left in the hands of our current jurisprudence, the basis of which generally fails to consider the construction of a legally recognized family as anything other than a married heterosexual couple who produces mutual biological children. This paper will focus on the origins of the so-called moral limitations of surrogacy, as well as a surrogate’s right to contract and be compensated for services. It also looks at a very recent and public case study involving a famous couple and their choice of surrogacy. The conclusion will offer the beginnings of a solution to the tenuous legal ground upon which surrogacy in the United States currently stands.
Surrogacy is not currently federally codified. Because of this, the legal status of a surrogate varies from state to state. | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y | From their story, it seems that Sarai (later called Sarah) and Abraham were willing to do whatever it took to have children, including the use of Hagar, Sarai’s maid, as a traditional surrogate. In other words, surrogacy is nothing new.
One of the newer trends in surrogacy legislation is using vital records to track the use of surrogacy and other methods of assisted reproductive technology. A recent bill in the Missouri state legislature seeks to require the name of both the biological parents and any donor parents to be shown on the child’s birth certificate. This bill preserves the legal right of a donor to be free of a legal relationship with a child born as a result of the donation unless legally contracted. However, adult children of a sperm or egg donation made prior to January 1, 2010, can request the identifying information of his or her donor parent, and the idea is that the system would work similarly to an adopted child attempting to find their biological parents. Children born as a result of a sperm or egg donation made after January 1, 2010, can receive a copy of his or her original birth certificate indicating his or her donor’s identifying and medical history information from the State Registrar and the donation facility used in their conception.
The arguments raised in favor of such legislation include availability of genetic lineage and allowing citizens to discover their birth or genetic parents, much as adoptees now do under adoption statutes. The reasons why adoptees wish to locate their biological parents are numerous. However, many egg and sperm donors do not wish to have contact, nor do they wish to have any rights or relationship with children resulting from their donations. They choose to donate either for altruistic or financial reasons, but have enough separation from the conception process itself to disconnect from the idea of a child born of their genetic material.
A better and more private alternative would be to allow donation agencies to release anonymous health histories and family backgrounds to those seeking genetic information. The “right to know” should rest with the gamete donor, and not with any resultant child. It stands to reason that people are far less likely to donate eggs and/or sperm if they know the donation will not be anonymous, or if at some point a child may come looking for them. Donors are already anonymous; it would simply be a matter of matching a donor code number to the correct recipient.
There exists a potential legal problem with identifying multiple sets of parents on a birth certificate. While the spirit of the law is recognized, if a birth certificate reflects “intended parents,” and “biological parents,” the use of reproductive technology is immediately implied. While it does not specifically state that the child has any different legal status than any other child (i.e., a child who was not conceived via reproductive technology), the difference is implied, and may be enough to establish a discrimination claim. | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y |
Culture plays a significant role in any negotiation. Culture can be defined as much by what it is not as what it actually is and what it signifies. Culture is not homogenous, nor is it a specific thing. It is also not singular or uniform. Statements such as “all Russians are stubborn” or “all Japanese are accommodating,” are inherently broad and overly simplistic. While the understanding of a culture’s generalizations are appropriate, it is much more productive to a negotiator to understand the significance of a culture to the matter at hand, and how that culture’s attitude can and will affect the table talks. When one approaches a foreign culture, one experiences it in a way that is relatable to his own culture, and comparisons necessarily arise.
Attempting to understand a foreign culture or mindset can involve anything from studying its history to realizing its prejudices. Rather than judging or attempting to change a culture, one must simply accept it for what it is, and work within its boundaries, especially within the scope of negotiation, and most especially if one comes to the table with a weaker bargaining position. Likewise, if a negotiator finds himself on “away” territory, a respect for traditions and beliefs can only help in getting over any cultural barriers and move the negotiation forward.
It is important to note that culture does not necessarily limit itself to a national/international dichotomy. Most companies within a given nation establish their own corporate culture. For instance, a corporate culture might emphasize long hours in the office or a more relaxed schedule. Evidence of a corporate culture can be seen in employee dress codes, in communication style (direct v. indirect communication, delegation of duties), and hiring practices. Some companies encourage philanthropy at any level from employees, others restrict it to “company approved” charities or fundraisers. One need only look at the differences in American corporate culture from company to company (and indeed, intra-company diversity exists even from region to region, urban to suburban environments included) to appreciate the diversity of thought that can reside within a particular societal culture. Certain cultures are not nearly as stratified as American culture, and may appear more uniform to an outsider, but a similar exterior is simply a sign to dig deeper.
Values are even more important to understand, because they provide the why of a culture. If saving face or communal harmony are valued within a culture, it is certain that a negotiator will not publicly shame his company or his superior in order to succeed at the negotiation table. Likewise, a negotiator from a culture which gives greater weight to a hard-driven bargain will not necessarily be driven to settle at the earliest opportunity. Taking these generalities into consideration is important before one gets to the negotiating table. However, a negotiator is well-served to learn something about his opponent on a personal level in order to make the negotiation effective. | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y | Cultures produce atypical personalities without exception, and woe to the negotiator who does not anticipate both potential situations. It is indeed a fine line to walk in terms of sussing out your opponent’s tactics, but gaining appreciation for an individual’s values within the scope of his culture (both national and potentially corporate) which will allow a foreign negotiator the latitude and the means to strike an advantageous bargain.
Certainly, some cultures value timeliness more than others, and “timeliness” as a concept is subjectively defined. An American negotiator may see no reason why a bargain couldn’t be struck start-to-finish in one day, where his European counterpart might require no less than three meetings before a deal is finalized. Where the American might find the timeline aggravating, the European would see it as normal, perhaps even a bit rushed. More ritualistic cultures can require an extensive amount of socialization before business is even discussed. It is to the advantage of the foreigner to cooperate with a ritual than to rebel against it; if a culture demands a six hour dinner-and-drink outing where absolutely no business is discussed until an authority figure give the go-ahead, a negotiator best prepare himself by studying menus and determining which dish and wine are most appropriate to order.
Even when one negotiates on home territory, concessions to culture can and should occur. It would not be out of place for an American negotiator to welcome a Japanese counterpart with a bow as well as a handshake, even when in America. Likewise, if an Italian businessperson is accustomed to a long social meal prior to conducting business, perhaps a good concession might be a long business lunch, or a meeting the evening before over a business dinner. When a foreigner comes to the table, they should also be educated and aware of customs. Most importantly, one should understand exactly how forgiving a culture is or is not when dealing outside one’s home turf, and attempts should be appreciated as opposed to reviled or criticized.
With regard to gender and race, it is often best to set aside perceived stereotypes in a negotiation process. It is often the targets of stereotype who reflect it and respond to it, and are therefore most affected by it. In business, law and negotiation, those to whom a stereotype is applied often overcompensate in order to defeat the stereotype. For example, if a common belief is that a woman will very often give more away at the table in order to preserve a long-term account or relationship, she may very well approach the table with aggression in order to get the deal done.
The best one can do as a negotiator when dealing with perceived stereotypes are to not call attention to them in your opponent, and to attempt to cope with them if you are a target by recalling highlights and achievements which have nothing to do with the stereotype itself. | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y |
However, by removing a surrogate’s right to be compensated, she is in fact, exploited. Women are socialized in Western civilization to be inherently altruistic, placing the needs of others before their own. When confronted with the potential to be a surrogate for a family member, a woman may feel greater obligation to agree, or feel greater guilt when denying the request. In other words, women who feel familial pressure to, quite literally, deliver a child, can be subjugated and will likely experience feelings of regret or dismay at having to surrender a child at the behest of the family. The expectation is also heightened within non-Western people groups, and is specifically pronounced within the South Asian culture. It may not seem important to understand the particulars of a South Asian family group, but when cultures and families and ethnic groups relocate to the Western world, they do not simply abandon all of their traditions and norms. In fact, knowing that these attitudes exist even within South Asian families in Western countries is important in identifying women at risk of this type of exploitation.
Even in commercial surrogacy, the emphasis is often placed upon the desire to assist an infertile couple achieve parenthood, rather than using the idea of money as a motivating factor. Any surrogacy is altruistic; compensation simply enables the woman to be an active and considered partner in the contract.
In extra familial surrogacy, an economic case is often raised against the practice. Words like “supply and demand” and “market” and “saleable” and “product” are thrown about in an effort to commodify the practice of surrogacy. Altruism is thrown out the proverbial window, and opponents force participants to justify compensating a woman for what they call “reproductive prostitution.” However, an important distinction can be made between prostitution and surrogacy: the prostitute sells sex; the surrogate mother sells reproduction. The prostitute’s product is pleasure, which is fleeting and intangible. The surrogate’s product is motherhood, which is also intangible. However, motherhood relies upon the presence of a child, which is absolutely more concrete. By allowing reasonable compensation for any and all types of surrogate arrangements, the surrogate is empowered and may feel somewhat justified beyond her own altruism.
While it is impossible to completely explain the need for surrogacy beyond maternal instinct or cultural indoctrination, its implications and its consequences, it is interesting to note that history has referenced the practice as far back as the Old Testament. The story of Sarai and Abraham is thousands of years old, and yet it resonates deeply in twenty-first century America. This particular couple’s faith in each other and in God was tested when prophesy revealed to Abraham years before by God, seemed doomed to failure. They were both elderly and had borne no children of their own, despite God’s promise to Abraham that he should “look toward the heavens and count the stars” to measure his promised descendants. | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y |
Yesterday morning I woke up feeling like I’d been run over by a Mack truck. Even though I’d slept about 7 hours, I felt like I hadn’t had any sleep at all. The morning was easy - I got Jedi Girl off to school and then Jedi Baby and I hung out on the couch watching Dora The Explorer. (I must admit, I dozed a little. But just a little. Responsible Mom takes precedence over Whiny Tired Chick when the kiddos are present.)
Went to put La Bebeh upstairs for her nap, and noticed a strange sharp pain in my right side. I figured it might be just a stitch - I’d been crunched up all weird on the couch, hadn’t eaten anything, so I got the baby to bed and then got some ice water for myself.
OUCH.
Clue #1 that Something Was Wrong: water isn’t supposed to HURT.
So then I did what all good Netizens do: I consulted Dr. Google.
Dr. Google and his partner, WebMD told me that I probably had indigestion or gastro-esophageal reflux, or with the onset of certain other symptoms, possibly appendicitis or a kidney stone or gall bladder disease. I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner, so I didn’t figure indigestion was the problem. Reflux was out, because I am a veteran of reflux (thank you pregnancy) and this was nothing I’d ever felt before.
Kidney stone? Maybe - but the referral pain is usually in the shoulders and back, and I didn’t have pain in those sites. Gall bladder? Well, you kinda need a gall bladder to have a gall bladder problem, and I have been sans gall bladder since late 2003.
Meanwhile, the pain continues to build and I’m starting to freak out just a little. I sent an IM to my husband. He has a work meeting but encourages me to call the triage nurse and see if they want me to come in. I get an appointment, and fortunately, my superhero sister in law is able to leave work for 15 minutes to drive me over to the clinic. Hubby meets me and Jedi Baby there, doc takes one look and feel at me, and sends me straight to the ER.
They give me pain meds and a CAT scan, confirm that my appendix is on the fast track for a death sentence, and let me call my husband. By 8:15pm last night, I’m in the OR and being sent to the land of Nod so that the (very cute, seriously East-Coast-Canadian accented) surgeon can perform swift justice on my appy.
After a couple hours in recovery, I get wheeled into a post-op room, which is where I currently sit. I’m pretty sure I’ll get to go home today - I’m meeting all the criteria for release and fairly stunning my nurses with my progress. I’m going to take a walk around the unit and hopefully my doc will give me the go-ahead. He might have me stay here and have lunch so I know I can tolerate solid food, but I doubt that’ll be a problem.
| 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y |
Still problematic within this construct is the Law of Placing. In a severely patriarchal hierarchy such as the FLDS, a minor girl might not be able to express a right of refusal to marry if her father or the elders or prophet within the church decides she is to enter into an arranged marriage. Expansion of the ongoing dialogue between the church group and social services organizations, including private as well as state-run agencies, would help to address this concern. If a girl is made aware of her rights and has access to a crisis hotline, Child Protective Services, or the court system, she can be afforded the same rights as any other girl of her age in her state. Likewise, if access to health care is provided, counseling as to legal rights, family planning options, and sexual self-care can drastically improve her quality of life. This also positively affects her mental health by promoting a positive self-image and allowing her to project a positive frame of mind for her family and ultimately, her children.
The next step in the redefinition of marriage must be the method and process by which the change occurs. There is enough law present in the country to guarantee the right to marry or the right not to marry under the Constitutional right to privacy, and citizens have the right to contract amongst themselves in order to make their own personal law. Fundamentally, the process of a legally recognized union could potentially remain unchanged. The state could even provide a model or generic nuptial agreement to be modified and signed by those desiring to be united. The contract could then be filed with a county clerk or registrar upon completion. Replacing marriage per se with contracted unions provides an elastic, yet proven method of creating families and encouraging stable partnerships which retain the social status and benefits of that which we currently term “marriage”.
The common rules of contractual obligation would apply: in order to enter into a legal nuptial contract, one must be able to provide consideration in the form of a commitment; one must be of legal capacity or have parental permission based upon the guidelines of the law, an offer freely made and an acceptance freely given. This would allow two or more parties to arrange their own rules. A contract could be indefinite; it could set forth a time frame for the union, at which time a renewal contract could be signed and amendments or changes made.
In the case of a plural marriage, the contract between two spouses could allow for a certain number of additional spouses, or a waiting period before allowing an additional marriage to take place. It could also specify age of any additional spouses, and specify remedies in the case of breach. The state could also regulate the minimum age for a contracted individual, much the same as marriage licenses are currently granted with parental permission to minors who have reached a state-sanctioned age (usually no younger than 16). | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y |
It also seems that surrogacy is embraced by a growing portion of society. There are open discussion fora on the Internet for both surrogates and those who are researching the process. There are also children’s books on the subject, including Hope and Will Have a Baby and The Kangaroo Pouch. These books can be used by both children within a family who will receive children from a surrogate, as well as for biological children of a surrogate, in order to understand why the baby that is growing in their mother’s womb is not coming home to the family after it is born.
Although their situation is public due to their occupations as actors and their notoriety as celebrities, the case of Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick seems to be typical of a couple who uses a surrogate: for one reason or another, she is unable to conceive, or perhaps her eggs or his sperm were deemed unusable by their fertility specialist or physician. They chose to engage a surrogate’s services in order to add to their family.
An interesting point in this case is the jurisdiction in question. Parker and Broderick are residents of New York, where contracts for surrogacy are held as “void, unenforceable and contrary to public policy” and if discovered, can carry fines of up to $500 for the parties to the contract and up to $10,000 for any agency arranging the surrogacy for profit. The surrogate’s residency is unknown, as are the particular circumstances of the surrogacy arrangement. As Parker and Broderick are both well-known actors, and appear to have considerable net worth, it would seem they would have the wherewithal to absorb a fine of $500. While $10,000 is a comparatively large sum for an agency to pay, Parker and Broderick may have decided to take the risk of the fine, as the amount it may not be as dear to them as it might be to a typical American middle-class couple. The New York law also prohibits civil or criminal penalty for parties to an uncompensated surrogacy contract. It is entirely possible that the couple contracted with an uncompensated surrogate.
It is also possible that the surrogate is in another state, or that the contract was executed in a more surrogate-friendly jurisdiction in order to avoid the potential penalties listed above. Depending upon the situation, the surrogate may be able to be compensated, and the intended parents may even have a pre-birth order for the birth certificate when the twins are born. The outcome of this case is yet to be seen; at the time of this writing, the twin girls carried by the Parker-Broderick surrogate are expected sometime in the summer of 2009.
There is no clear-cut solution to the issue of surrogacy in America. Proponents of surrogacy say there is no objectification of a woman because she is using her body in a way that is considered natural, and that the decision to become pregnant via surrogacy is not one that can be made without the assent of the surrogate. | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y | California in particular has had significant influence on the rights of homosexuals in general, and specifically became the latest state to recognize the individual rights, respect and dignity of homosexuals, and to afford protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Plural marriage was also seen as deviant, and is still illegal and its practitioners vilified. In nineteenth century America, Mormon polygamy was defamed in public. In Reynolds v. United States, the Supreme Court termed polygamy “odious among the northern and western nations of Europe.” Reynolds codified the extension of the U.S.’s ban on polygamy to Utah, effectively requiring its Mormon founders to give up their polygamous practices, despite the fact that they considered the practice ordained by God and necessary for salvation and entry into heaven. Modern courts continue to maintain the illegality of plural marriage.
The perpetuation of the mythical, natural American two-parent, nuclear family has functioned to exclude the problems and concerns of nontraditional (often labeled deviant) families from political and public consideration. However, with the normalization of cohabitation, the decreasing stigma of single motherhood and non-marital sexual expression, the increasing acceptance of homosexuality and single-sex couples and the advent of assisted reproductive technology, the historic purposes of confining marriage to “one man, one woman” no longer reasonably apply in modern American society. Indeed, the expansion of the definition of “marriage” and “family” seems long overdue. There is no substantive legal reason beyond satisfying the cry of the vox populi, especially given the definition and expansion of our Constitutional right to privacy in the late twentieth century, why these practices should continue to be stigmatized, banned and outlawed.
It is notable that the federal courts in America have, with very limited exception, declined jurisdiction over domestic relations issues. Full faith and credit would seemingly provide protection for various states’ practices, however, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) allows states to ignore civil unions for homosexual couples legally united or married in another state. The federal government may also disregard unions recognized in individual states under DOMA. The implications of the right to marry are extremely complex, involving a variety of often-interrelated rights.
Civil unions serve the same purpose as marriage licenses: recognizing a union of two people and giving legitimacy to their status as a couple. Therefore, the argument comes down to semantics and politics. If a civil union does the exact same thing as a marriage license in the eyes of the state, then all couples, regardless of sexual preference should be recognized in the same way.
It seems that the Sherbert v. Vernor and Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah courts determined a test for preventing legislative interference with religious practice, despite the precedent set in Reynolds whereby a moral argument was made in order to justify religious discrimination and outlaw Mormon polygamy.
In Hialeah, a group of Cuban refugees formed a church to practice the Santeria religion. | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y | Further, social stigma against surrogacy has eroded, so the time is ripe for codifying that which is already happening. If the goal of the state is to ensure the health, safety and welfare of its citizens, its protection should not be second-guessed in this arena.
Since it is the service of pregnancy that is being marketed, and not the baby which results, the claim of “baby-selling” is moot. So too is the claim of surrogacy as “reproductive prostitution.” The American Bar Association has authored and is currently lobbying model surrogacy legislation which includes the provisions put forth in the Illinois GCA, currently considered the gold standard for surrogacy legislation in America.
Further, the federal government should look into agency regulation of surrogacy and its practices. Couples and surrogates often cross state lines for more favorable jurisdictions. Keeping in mind that the service of the surrogate as gestational carrier is what is being bargained for and exchanged, and not the baby itself, it seems that there is an element of interstate commerce, and thus a federal interest. If Congress is disinterested in passing federal code which mirrors state laws like the Illinois GCA, it should consider giving oversight to the Department of Health and Human Services. A good start might be a task force to discover current practices and what is considered “the norm” within the realm of gestational surrogacy.
There is also an international component for the federal government to consider. Since it is proven that international couples can (and do) employ American surrogates, it seems that both the Immigration and Naturalization Service as well as the Department of Homeland Security should have some purview.
Finally, although positive legislation effectively equals state sanction, it does not specifically encourage the practice of gestational surrogacy. It merely sheds light on a very gray area, where medicine, morals and law intersect, and children are created.
The American family construct is ripe for redefinition. Legally, a family is the natural extension of a marriage, which was most eloquently defined by Justice William O. Douglas in Griswold v. Connecticut as “an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects.”
For the first time in our nation’s history, social attitudes and scientific technology offer a legitimate departure from the traditional definition of marriage, as well as the opportunity to expand rights and redefine family in a diverse and meaningful way. The proliferation of reproductive technologies such as in-vitro fertilization, artificial insemination and egg/sperm donation, as well as the increasing social acceptance of adoption and surrogate pregnancy, ensures that Justice Douglas’s own words in Skinner v. Oklahoma that “marriage and procreation are fundamental to the . . . survival of the race” are no longer valid in our modern society.
To fully grant every American citizen the right to unite, the right not to unite, and the right to divide with regard to personal relationships and marriage, there are three issues which must be closely examined and proposed in a way that is fair and satisfying both socially and legally. | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y | Since family codes now actively work toward offering a level playing field for all children regardless of their parents’ marital status, and apply a “best interest” standard when making decisions for all children, it seems incongruous to apply a different standard to something as important as a vital record.
Further, the use of vital records for statistics and official data collection is valid; however the same ends can be accomplished via an anonymous survey given at the time the birth record itself is submitted. A separate survey could collect information regarding method of conception, parental age and marital status, use of a surrogate, and use of gamete donors. Pre-birth orders filed during a surrogate pregnancy would ensure that the surrogate’s right to remain anonymous is fulfilled, and that the intended parents are the only parents listed on a birth certificate.
The larger question that looms over this particular legislative question is, of course, why does this information matter to the state? The state’s government is charged with protecting the health, safety and welfare of the public. It is certainly interesting to follow the advances of technology and in the state’s interest to gauge the vox populi in determining the demand for its police powers. However, once a child is born, it shouldn’t be the state’s concern how that child arrived, nor should the state attempt to separate the child from his peers, even on a birth certificate. A child is a child, regardless of circumstance, and each deserves equal rights, protection and dignity from the state.
The story of Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick’s relationship and marriage is about twenty years old, including their courtship, but the celebrity couple recently made headlines when they released the above announcement. Their reason for using a surrogate for this pregnancy is unknown as of the time of this writing. However, reason suggests that a number of factors played into their decision to use a surrogate. Like Sarai in the Bible, Ms. Parker is getting older. She is currently 44 years old, which is considered advanced maternal age. She was also over 35 at the time of her first pregnancy. The method of conception for their first son was kept private, although Ms. Parker did conceive and give birth to that child at approximately age 38.
Stories like Ms. Parker’s are becoming increasingly more common in the United States. A generation of girls raised by feminist working mothers and grandmothers in the 1970’s and 1980’s watched those female role models become financially independent. As a result, many of those girls chose to delay marriage and children in favor of securing a career and financial security. Advances in reproductive technology and fertility treatments in the last thirty years or so meant that women could become mothers on their own timelines. Motherhood and career became a balancing act rather than a finite choice, neither requiring the total sacrifice of the other for survival. | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y | In doing so, citizens are empowered with a clear understanding of their rights and government is removed from any unnecessary intrusion into the private lives of the citizenry. By normalizing that which is now seen, at least by some, as deviant or strange, we can allow for greater freedom, understanding, diversity and dialogue within America.
This proposition also has a specific impact on so-called “separatist” groups, which choose to segregate themselves from greater society, mostly for religiously motivated reasons. Here, two groups are used as examples: Old Order Amish (“Amish”), and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (“FLDS”). It seems logical that if the reason to separate is removed, greater understanding of these groups’ cultures can be gained, and an open dialogue between the sect and society at large can occur.
Although their marriage practices specifically are not outside the defined norm of American society at large, the Amish fought for exemptions from the law in order to practice their religion, maintained contact with mainstream society and preserved their unique culture since their arrival in the U.S., dating back to the late eighteenth century. They are an example of a separatist group which has coexisted peacefully with mainstream society for nearly as long as the United States has been sovereign.
The FLDS is relatively new separatist group; formed specifically in order to continue the practice of plural marriage against the interference of the state after Mormon leaders renounced it in favor of statehood for Utah. The FLDS’s complete separation is extensive; the vast majority of marriages occur without marriage licenses or contract of any kind, state-issued birth certificates are not filed with any regularity, and the right to personal property is all but absent as the church’s fund owns all lands and seizes most earnings from its members.
In order to explore this expansion and its societal implications, three issues must be discussed. The first issue is the reasoning behind “one man – one woman” jurisprudence. The second issue is the government’s role in regulating religious practices. The final issue involves spiritual practice regarding marriage in the United States and the intermingling of state and church in that particular social practice. An exploration of replacing state-sanctioned marriage with individual contracts between persons desiring a formal acknowledgment of their status and the consequences of implementing such a system will also be presented, specifically with regard to the implications on the FLDS in particular.
Since the founding of the nation, marriage has played both a central role in the American political imagination and the political economy of the United States. Its roots and origins can be traced both in sacred text and historic account. It is Christian tradition which placed homosexual relationships squarely in the realm of the taboo, and which still pervades the moral arguments against recognition of same-sex unions and gay marriage in modern America. The last decade has seen major inroads in the crusade to extend the fundamental right to marry to homosexual couples. | 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
y | If a surrogate is lucky, her jurisdiction has comprehensive legislation which covers her rights and responsibilities, as well as those of the intended parents, such as Illinois or Texas. For example, the Illinois Gestational Carrier Act states specifically what is and what is not allowed, and the circumstances under which a surrogacy may be contracted and carried out. It also states who may become a surrogate, how a parent-child relationship can be established, and what remedies are available to the parties in case of noncompliance. Likewise, the Texas state statute defines and codifies many of the same issues surrounding surrogacy.
Whether a surrogacy contract is enforceable or recognized in a state seems to turn mostly on that state’s definition of “family.” For instance, Nevada allows “two people whose marriage is valid under Nevada law” to enter into a surrogacy agreement. Since Nevada’s state constitution reserves marriage to heterosexual couples, the surrogacy statute effectively discriminates against homosexual couples. It is also discriminatory on its face against unmarried persons. However, the statute says nothing about the marital status of the surrogate. It does not demand that she be unmarried. If it did, the state could be criticized as promoting pregnancy (in whatever form) out of wedlock. It also does not demand that she be married, for then the state could be accused of tearing a potential family apart, i.e., removing a child from the parents who cared for it in gestation and may have rights to it despite the presence of a contract. Therefore, a double standard seems to be apparent, as being an unmarried intended parent in the eyes of the law (in some states) precludes one from contracting for a surrogacy.
The debate over surrogates’ rights within legislation also turns on compensation. The issue of compensation within a surrogacy contract is hotly debated. States such as Washington allow surrogacy, but only if the surrogate is not paid for her time or effort beyond actual expenses incurred. Arizona, Michigan and the District of Columbia have gone so far as to criminalize the practice of surrogacy outright.
“Altruistic” surrogacy is defined as unpaid, noncommercial surrogacy, where the surrogate receives no compensation above and beyond reasonable expenses. In this situation, a surrogate is presumed to be acting of her own free will to help a loved one. Many jurisdictions that choose to legislate surrogacy remain silent on so-called “altruistic” surrogacy while specifically banning paid surrogacy. It is a policy rationale that allowing a surrogate to be paid for her service somehow violates the woman’s body as sanctum and her womb as sanctum sanctorum and instead cheapens and commodifies her unique capability to carry and bear children. Some conservative lobbyists insist that surrogacy can only be viewed one of two ways: first, that if it is the service for sale, the surrogate is committing “reproductive prostitution” by selling her body in exchange for money, and second, that the resultant child is viewed as an item for sale, which is expressly forbidden in every state.
| 34 | English | female | JD/Law degree | Attorney | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | I have always been a sort of a “daddy’s girl”. He would take me on motorcycle trips and let me go with him and my brother on racing events. I used to rollerblade in the shop showroom with my best friend when I was young. Looking back I can’t believe that he allowed me to do that! How that must have affected his business, I don’t know.
My mother has always been very loyal and tender-hearted. In my life I have always seen her working at the shop for my father. She manages the parts department, and without her it would fall apart. She is amazing. She also has such a heart for others. When I was young she was the Missionettes coordinator. Other girls called her mom as well because she was so personable and loving to the other girls that may not have had such a loving home. When I was twelve years old, she took me on a trip to Japan. It was a ‘sister cities’ program and I could see then how much she loved different cultures and peoples. I had that same love in me. I started discovering that love in my teen years. Again at fourteen, my mother took me on a mission’s trip to the Philippines. On that trip I had my first experience with serving others through laymen’s work. I passed out toothpaste and stickers to the kids in the dental clinic. I also cleaned the dental tools. It was during that time that I fell in love with the Philippines and fell in love with the idea of serving overseas. I can honestly say that it was the influence of my mother that nurtured my desire to be a missionary.
My high school years were a time of dedication and growth. Being highly involved in my youth grouped directly shaped me as a ministry driven person. I learned that being actively involved in church was more important than any social scene that high school could provide. I learned that seeking the will of God would direct my steps for the rest of my life. I was nurtured in the fact that even though I was young God could use me in ministering to others through preaching, teaching, and drama. During those times I really only had one goal; to return to the Philippines to be a missionary. Along with that goal came another; to find “the one”. Although some secular people might not know what I am speaking of, I am sure that every Christian knows exactly what I mean.
I know that it is common for teenage girls to have dreams of marriage and finding the perfect man, but I think in the Christian culture of America it is so hard pressed to wait, wait, and WAIT, for the right “one” that some girls get easily distracted. It was good for me that I was taught not to date, but along with that came something that I think mentors did not intend to happen. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | Its focus is clearly to evangelize to those who are not saved and in peril and suffering. It is the testimony of one girl who experienced everything hellish a young teenager could but then was converted to Christ through a Teen Challenge ministry. The article has a strong appeal to women who are being abused, on drugs, or has had the loss of a child, and they keep Christian terms very broad and simple. They only used the name Jesus once (when she explained her complete conversion within the article). Throughout the article only God is used to define the Lord.
The focus of persuasion and communication is on role-tending. By readers imagining they are experiencing same trials as Trish, the main character, they will reflect upon their own lives and see it was such peril (that is, if they somewhat are experiencing the same trials). The goal of the article is clearly to have salvations come from the message. This is confirmed by an adjacent advertisement detailing the steps to accept Christ and a number to call after doing so.
The message of Christ is kept general and simple so that all denominations and all peoples can accept what is presented. There is a slight plug for the ministry of Teen Challenge but it is within the context of her testimony so I do not believe it to be intentional on the part of the Assemblies of God.
This article was unlike any other because it clearly had a slant. Even though I do not know the title, the article is obviously concerning the issue of whether or not America was founded on Christian Principles. The author does little to state the other side of opinion. He instead interviews one Christian worker who gives tours in Boston. The style of the article is in an interview form and somewhat of an adventure; the author takes readers along with him on a journey that tours founding themes of faith in American history. Again this style of communication is more like role-tending than anything else. Readers will cognitively imagine that they are on the tour as well and therefore get emotionally involved in the opinions expressed in the article.
In the middle of the article there is a platform on the issue of prayer not being allowed in schools anymore. The man interviewed states statistics that are meant to support evidence as to why teenagers are so rebellious and in peril since the time that prayer was taken out of the school system. There is also a platform from the man interviewed that schools do not teach the true history behind the events surrounding the Revolutionary War. In the concluding remarks of the interview both the author and the man interviewed call on Christians to conform to one ideal that they must be unified in being involved in political agendas. Noonan mentioned God seven times, Jesus three times, and an A.G. department one time. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | The account of the flood might have split, like a fork in the road, down two separate paths: the first path is of peganistic cultures who serve more than one deity, and the second path was the monotheistic culture since the time of Abraham.
The flood story in Gilgamesh and the biblical account of Noah and the flood are similar because they might have possibly of come from one or similar cultural sources. But as God separated Abraham, the line of Hebrews began oral traditions that changed to reflect the Hebrew Almighty God. When Moses took an account of the flood not only did he have a monotheistic view, but also we have to consider the fact that he was inspired by God himself. Although these two accounts of the great flood might be literarily similar, they vastly differ in the fact that one account lies within a book that is alive and inspired by God and the other is, well, a very fascinating historical document.
The purpose of this research is to study Pentecostal language and how it is passed from generation to generation. The source of text (artifact) is both from an interview with an established Assemblies of God Pastor as well as through the study of the Pentecostal Evangel in the past forty years. This research will use Kenneth Burke’s guilt-redemption-cycle as a means to analyze the language that is found in each text.
Kenneth Burke, a college professor who never actually graduated college himself, died in 1993 after years of brilliant work in communication theory. Dramatism is a term created by Burke to represent his theory of rhetoric and communication. In dramatism, life is a drama and the world is a stage. Three of Burke’s most famous methods of theory are: identification, the dramatic pentad, and the guilt-redemption cycle. These methods help to explain and describe the theory of dramatism.
Identification is described as the common ground that exists between the speaker and the audience. It is a new theory of rhetoric and is solely concerned with the speakers own ability to communicate with the audience. In fact, Burke would go so far as to say that identification should replace persuasion. A way that Burke uses to describe identification is by comparing it with the religious concept of consubstantiation. Burke said, “The effective communicator can show consubstantiality by giving signs in language and delivery that his or her properties are the same as theirs” (330). In essence, when we connect with each other we see each other as “talking sense.”
One of Burke’s greatest theories, the Dramatic Pentad, is a five-fold method of how to see the underlying motivation of the speaker. Through five categories of act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose one can analyze a speaker and discover their intended, or said motivation of what he/she says. Burke’s last theory called the guilt-redemption cycle, and the selected theory of this research, is said to be the root of all rhetoric. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | Because of my natural ability to adapt easy, I surmise that I interact with peoples of other cultures very well. And also I do not interact well with people of my own culture. I might interact well with missionaries and travelers; but with most mid-western peoples who are through and through ‘red, white, and blue’ I have a harder time interacting with them. I think it is because we do not understand on another. They do not understand me or my ways and thinking as a “bicultural chameleon” and I do not understand them as a one unified culture, innocent of other cultures, persons. I know that I still need to work on how to properly treat and interact with pure American peoples.
I could have filled this paper with commonly speaking of my objective culture and how the surface layer of my iceberg molds who I am. I could give specific examples of how I dress, what some of my ideologies are, or how I socially greet or interact with others. But I think this is all to be taken lightly. For I have no one objective culture. I am now made of two, and therefore my interaction is always shifting and changing. As I grow and change in life I hope that in any area that I am in, I will adapt and overcome to the best of my ability so that I can always remain a chameleon. The idea of me being a chameleon is important because chameleons change colors according to their environment; they blend in. If I were a chameleon I would blend in and only Christ would show through. Shouldn’t that be the goal of every believer?
I have now found my answer to the question that I have always found annoying! The question is this, “If you were an animal, what would it be and why?” I have never in all my life been able to answer that question until just now. How amazing! I would be a chameleon, a constant change in order to blend into any environment, transparent and unseen so that what you see through me is Christ, the culture that I am living in, and my life as it should be. I leave you now, my reader, with a thought that I find significant. It is from one of my required textbooks this semester entitled Producing and Directing Drama for the Church by Robert M. Rucker:
Man creates from what already exists, he “rearranges”. Culture too rearranges and it is molded and shaped from what we have experienced and learned. There isn’t anything that is new; it is simply reformed into something else that appears to be new. Though the author uses this diagram in speaking about drama, I think it is just as important when speaking of culture. We are creative beings. We shift and change as we learn of other cultures, styles, and people groups. Our culture affects others and vice versa. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | He often goes off on tangents and then will abrasively recover from them- all the while using improper grammar. At the conclusion of the article he states, “Back to where we began. Isolation. Its pain and its hurt [sic]” (7). He tries to conclude with the theme of isolation but it doesn’t really fit the true and intended form of his article. What is communicated to the reader is that the leper story in the gospels relates to an incorrect theology of prayer and if one does not straighten out his prayer ‘know-how’ he will then be bound by isolation.
For the purpose of my Pentecostal language study, I did a word count of how many times an author states the following words: God, Jesus/Christ, Holy Spirit, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal or Pentecostalism, or an A.G. institution, department, or event. It was interesting to see that he mentioned God eleven times, Jesus fifteen times, Holy Spirit zero times, Assemblies of God zero times, Pentecostalism zero times, and he mentioned an Assemblies of God institution one time (for the purpose of establishing authors credibility).
Of all the 1987 articles I researched, this article is the only one to be authored by a woman. Sandra Clopine is a secretary of the Women’s Ministries Department. Like the article before, her topic is broad so that she can discuss whatever topic she wishes too. She obviously had a platform in talking about the department she works for and the purpose of the article was almost to promote the department’s ministries. She speaks broadly about the proper way to live a Christian life-style and then transitions to an example of how this is properly lived out by the Benevolence Department. This is a reinforcing theme to promote the lifestyle that Assemblies of God members should follow.
She also fit into her article a social issue about Christians not caring for the needs of others. She related this directly to the proper way to live a Christian life-style. Her article was a ‘how-to’ guide as well and it is the first time that I saw slang used. Instead of saying properly, “thank you” she states, “thanks” (22). It is interesting to on the adjacent page there is an advertisement for the Benevolence Department. Its purpose is to offer a free prize for those who decide to subscribe to their magazine. Clopine didn’t seem trained in the style of journalism and it is clear that the target for her article is to speak about the good deeds of her department rather than her title. She mentioned God twelve times, Jesus/Christ eight times, Holy Spirit zero times, Assemblies of God zero times, Pentecostalism zero times, and mentioned an A.G. department, institution, or event four times.
I was surprised to see that I had pulled two articles from the same author, Dresselhaus. He is also the author of the first article mentioned, “The Pain of Isolation”. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | This mission is carried out through publishing inspirational features that focus on contemporary issues, biblical instruction and devotional guides, Christian news, and conversation pieces with Christian believers. More than 17, 000 individuals have reported making commitments to Jesus since 1997 through reading the Evangel.”
It is interesting to note that in their mission they use such a broad term as “inspirational features”. Their target audience must be held for believers and non-believers alike. Also, it is interesting to see that in the very end of their mission statement they defend their ministry by reporting how many have converted to Christ since 1997. Their defensive must have been for the purpose to establish their credibility and change of target audience to more of an evangelism base. This can be seen throughout all of the articles listed below.
The writing style since 1987 has improved drastically. The authors, including Lee, have more of a focused introduction and are consistent in their topics throughout their column. I didn’t see any one author who had a particular angle or personal opinion slant and I didn’t see grammatical or punctual errors.
In Lee’s article, I did see the concept of reinforcing what the Assemblies of God believe. He made sure to note a brief history of missionaries and the foundational purpose of missionaries within the Assemblies of God. His target audience was clearly aimed at gathering those to receive the calling into missions. He mainly did this through role-tending. He mentioned a national missions convention where hundreds of teenagers gave their hearts and lives for the call, this would cause the audience to think in their minds what they would have done had they been at the convention as well. He then concludes and calls people to answer the call into missions. The article also has a small thread to establish the credibility of the need for Assemblies of God churches overseas and the importance of a world-wide church plant ministry.
Lee mentioned God six times, Jesus one time, the Assemblies of God twice, Pentecostalism zero times, and an Assemblies of God institution or department three times.
I pulled this cover page because it was fascinating in the way it looked so much like a sports magazine. Of course I don’t expect anything else when the purpose of this edition is to cover events and people surrounding the Superbowl. The entire week’s edition is dedicated to testimonies of Christian athletes and how they serve God in a secular sports environment. The language is male focused and is therefore more aggressive in nature. There are photo spreads that could rival the best of sports magazines and the color is amazing. The focus of this edition seems to be for sports fans to choose TPE over any other sports magazine. Perhaps this edition was meant to be evangelistic in form, trying to reach secular sports fans.
This article is exactly the type of inspirational message that they mention in their mission statement. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh |
In twenty years time, TPE has changed dramatically. In fact, it has changed so dramatically that its very purpose in production and mission has changed. Their current mission statement is:
It is interesting to note that in their mission they use such a broad term as “inspirational features”. Their target audience is held for believers and non-believers alike. Also, it is interesting to see that in the very end of their mission statement they defend their ministry by reporting how many have converted to Christ since 1997. Their purpose is to establish their credibility and give evidence that their change of focused audience is successful.
The writing language of TPE improved drastically since its 1987 counterpart. The articles are more focused and authors no longer shift main points within the story.
Instead of finding instances of purging, what came to surface was a technique of persuasion call role-tending. Almost every article studied used the method of role-tending to persuade the reader of a certain belief or ethical issue. In common terms, role-tending is the process by which a participant imagines that they are in the situation they are entertained by. This can be done through a narration, a testimony, or even a report of a significant event.
Another fluent theme throughout 2007’s issues was the aesthetics. TPE simply was more attractive than any other past version of the magazine. It uses pictures and bold colors in order to be contemporary. The January 28 Super bowl edition is dedicated to testimonies of Christian athletes and how they serve God in a secular sports environment. The language is male focused and is therefore more aggressive in nature. The focus of this edition is for secular sports fans to choose TPE over any other sports magazine.
Other articles studied featured broad inspirational messages and most articles rarely used the name of Jesus. This lead the research to another aspect of study in Pentecostal Language: a specific word count of times when Pentecostal terms are used.
In 1987’s edition of the Pentecostal Evangel, of the articles studied, authors use the name: God forty-one times, Jesus fifteen times, Holy Spirit one time, Assemblies of God three times, Assemblies of God Department or Institution six times, and used the term Pentecostal or Pentecostalism zero times. 2007’s Today’s Pentecostal Evangel uses the name: God twenty-three times, Jesus twenty-one times, Holy Spirit one time, Assemblies of God two times, Assemblies of God Department or Institution nine times, and used the term Pentecostal or Pentecostalism zero times.
The results of the word count survey prove the theory that Pentecostal language has diminished in the past twenty to thirty years. It is alarming that in a Pentecostal magazine, of the articles studied, not once did authors use the name Pentecostal and only used the name of the Holy Spirit twice.
| 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | I have become molded and shaped so rapidly these past few years it’s hard to place it. I am married to a Filipino. Because of this I do not consider myself as a “missionary” because living in the Philippines is not my mission; it is my home. I started my acculturation when I was fourteen on a mission’s trip as stated above, again in 2002 on a college mission’s trip, an eight month stay as an intern in 2003, and indefinitely when I moved to the Philippines in 2004.
I consider myself set apart from other American missionaries that move to the Philippines because their acculturation is different than mine. Because I am married into the culture my acculturation is deep and unwavering. I live with another culture everyday and I allow the undergrowth of my “iceberg” to forever adapt and change so that I can live and maintain peacefully in this culture. My husband does the same for me. Acculturated is defined as, “when a person moves out of the culture in which he or she was enculturated and learns (becomes “at home” in) another culture.” It is also the same meaning as biculture.
Some missionaries might have an acculturation table that might look like this:
But my acculturation table would look something like this:
Because the new culture of which I married into stays with me no matter where I am my culture of origin and my new culture have also been married together and they cannot be removed or faded over time. I will forever be a mixture of American and Filipino culture; and I love it!
According to the subtitle above you, the reader, would expect me to talk about American people and how I interact with them. But that is not what I meant by ‘My Own People.” My ‘people’ are now both American and Filipinos and therefore my interaction with both often merge and mix. When I am in the Philippines I adapt as much as I can; transforming as deeply as possible while maintaining who I am as God made me. When I am in the United States I also must adapt as much as possible to make the transition of social interaction as smooth as it can be. But I might not treat Americans as fairly because while staying here I don’t want to lose my identity with Philippines culture.
When I interact with people of other cultures I also try and understand and adapt to their culture as much as possible. I guess I am a bit of a chameleon. I can remember in 2003 when I stayed in Baguio, I lived with a Korean though I was living in the Philippines. Some of my best friends were from Myanmar and so my interaction at that time was very mixed. I was American taking on the cultures of three at a time; though I must say that in the end the Korean culture stayed with me the most.
| 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh |
How are you, my reader, affecting those around you according to your culture? How is your country affecting other cultures? If we, the Christian subculture of America do not learn how to shift and change with the tide of culture we are in a dangerous place of loosing our effectiveness on society. I hope that you, like me, are willing to constantly be reformed and shaped into a being that can be transparent so that nothing can distract your message of who you are and what you believe in.
Mark A. Noll must have been very deliberate in his choosing of the word scandal. When I was reading the text, and he would mention the scandal of the evangelical mind is this or that, I would stop and read the definition of scandal within the sentence. It is such a powerful statement. The evangelical mind of the nation disgraces itself. Wow.
Honestly, I had trouble connecting with Noll for a while. I understood his platform, but his passion at times seemed overwhelming. Perhaps that is because I quite possibly could be one evangelical whose mind is not fully used. It’s too easy to live day to day in monotony and not put to use our God given philosophical talents. As I read through the text I highlighted statements, or portion, of the text that stood out to me (for good or negative reasons) and I would like to talk over a few of them.
Let us start from the beginning. On page seven Noll is closing his portion of subject on what he means by the “life of the mind”:
I consider Noll to be an extremely heavy thinker. Within such a short paragraph he can convey so much that a normal reader might not understand. And I do acknowledge the fact that this book is at a master degree program level, but even beyond that I still think of Noll as a very deep person. I had to chew on this paragraph for a while. I still am. Is it really ‘acute’ in Christian society today that we do not think much on government, economy, the meaning of the past, artistic creation, and so forth? I am not sure.
I do agree with him that we fail to think upon “circumstances attending our perception of the world outside ourselves.” (Noll, 7) There is so much bulk in that one phrase. It is completely true and I do agree. I would like to expand beyond that and say specifically that if evangelicals do not get their heads straight about culture and the world around them they are going to lose the battle for the United States. In fact, I would say that we are deeply losing now and only hanging on by a thread. That is why the term “bubble” and “inside the four walls” are so popular. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | It is true that Muslims are a very devout people; they are devout to their religion and to their cause. But the lie behind their cause is that Muhammad himself took people by force. And for anyone to believe that Islam is not a hostile religion is foolish. They truly believe in Jihad, and people, America especially, should not be naive of this fact.
Right now as I’m writing this paper, I am listening to a song called It’s a Wonderful World. It is a great song to sway to, relax to, and appreciate life. The fact that I enjoy this song is a testimony of how my worldview has shaped me. I enjoy this song because long ago I was taught that Christmas music is important. I was taught that appreciating what is musically beautiful is good. And I was taught that the ‘classics’ should never be forsaken.
Take a journey with me and imagine that you, the reader, are in my childhood memories. I am in the living room, young, maybe only early teens and my parents and I are dancing in the living room. What songs? Only the classics! The ‘classics’ are any classic rock song that is worthy. Also, during Christmas the classics may be songs that have become tradition to our family (such as Mariah Carey Christmas) to classics that were “classics” before I was born. As the songs play my father turns to both my brother and I and asks, “Who is it?” “Who is the Artist?” And we would think and think as though it were a competition. Still today anywhere there may be a classic rock song playing my father is sure to quiz me on who is the artist. And I love it. It is a constant tradition that has stayed with my family.
As with any child, my parents have largely shaped who I am today and what I believe in. I always joke that I was born in the Assemblies of God, an A.G. baby. But it is true, I don’t remember the time when I was saved; I was raised in church and church for me is as a second family. Without the influence of my parents or how they raised me I do not know how I would identify myself religiously. They taught me young about God, about morals, about what we, our family, believe in.
My father is a very strong man. From the time he was a young adult he has been raising our family. He started his business with his ‘bare hands’ and he has been a leader since the time before I was born. I grew up watching my father lead others in a business of retail (motorcycles, ATV’s, Watercraft, Parts and Service). I watched as the community knew him; he was on TV commercials and well known at racing events. I knew from a time when I was very young that my father was a very respectable man. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh |
A couple of pages later Noll remarks about a platform made by other researchers that says, “evangelicals—bereft of self-criticism, intellectual subtlety, or an awareness of complexity—are blown about by every wind of apocalyptic speculation and enslaved to the cruder spirits of populist science.” (Noll, 14) Yes! Yes ten times over! I am so tired of hearing, “we might not make it to next year, and surely the Lord is coming this year. This is the year.” I know that is bad to say, but it is nonetheless how I feel. This is very personal and I do not want this to be made public, but, at my church I feel that the leaders and other members are too concerned with predicting when the Lord is going to come again.
I just want to say to them, “do you not remember in the Bible how it says no one will no the hour or the day?” It truly eats at me when my pastor will give a sermon and salvation alter call based on the fact that if that person sitting in the audience does not come they might die and go to hell today or the Lord might come back tomorrow. Of course those statements are true but it is as though he were threatening and manipulating the very lives and souls of the unbeliever. Now then, I know that he means well, but in persuasion we call this manipulation or persuasion by fear. Many people in my church truly feel that we have only a couple of years left, maybe so. But is it right to use language in such a way as to scare the unbeliever? Or is it right to encourage other believers in the same thinking patterns? I think not.
Moving on and skipping ahead there is a portion of material that I am not sure I understand:
Is this really true? If it is Christian colleges around the world are in serious danger. I honestly cannot even conceive in my mind comments for this passage from the text. I don’t know what to think. But I do know what I feel; I feel fear. Fear for every student who is under me and for my friends who are currently in a mess and do not know how to properly interact with society and the world. Is this true of our professors at CBC? I am so perplexed with this because it boggles my mind that professors who are at doctorate level might not know the relationship between God and the world.
Another thing that blows my mind is when Noll called the cross a ‘scandal’. On page twenty-five he speaks of the scandal of the cross as a light and a hope. It is something to embrace. But I would like to ask Noll, why call the cross a scandal? Jesus dying on the cross for our sins was “an action or circumstance that cause[d] disgrace or offends public morality.” | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | “Burke was convinced that the ultimate motivation of all public speaking is to purge ourselves of an ever-present, all-inclusive sense of guilt [sic]” (332).
It is Sunday night at a small, rural, Assemblies of God church. The Holy Spirit is moving and for the length of the entire service the congregants have been at the alter. The pastor allows time to persist, even though the hour has run past 7:30 p.m. Some elders in the church have gotten a hold of the microphone and have prophesied about various aspects of the church. In each prophesy, all congregants are called to a more serious walk with Christ.
Clearwater Assembly (name changed) is not an uncommon church in the Midwest. Rural towns usually have at least one church that is predominately traditional in terms of church practice. The pastor, Jack Shepherd (name changed), has been at this church for approximately four years. Pastor Jack and his wife have been in the ministry for over thirty years and have experienced numerous times where they are called to a church for the purposes of helping it to heal. Clearwater Assembly is certainly one of those churches.
In an interview with Pastor Jack and his wife Kathy (name changed), they both shared their views on how Pentecostal language, or, Pentecostalism is changing in the new generation today. Pastor Jack first expressed that the new generation does not feel the urgency to be filled with the Holy Spirit along with the evidence of speaking in tongues. He acknowledged that some are trying to change the sentence structure of one of the statements of faiths concerning the initial physical evidence of speaking in tongues. He believes to change the sentence from stating “the initial physical evidence…” to; “an initial physical evidence” is wrong and unbiblical. Pastor also expounded on the fact that the new generation is loosing its sensitivity to the move of the Holy Spirit and the new generation no longer has a spiritual discernment as did Pentecostal generations in the past.
The interview then shifted focus into discussing Assemblies of God publications such as Today’s Pentecostal Evangel. Pastor Jack states that he doesn’t read TPE anymore due to the fact that most articles are too seeker-friendly. He then states that in sectional meetings with other ministers of the Assemblies of God the topic of Gospel Publishing House material is frequent. Ministers today discuss their dislike for the lack of bible based teachings in GPH material and usually offer to set aside GPH material for other more bible based resources.
Today’s Pentecostal Evangel is the most promising artifact for analysis concerning Pentecostal language through generations. By analyzing random articles within magazines from January through April 1967, 1987, and 2007, this research discovered numerous findings concerning Pentecostal language and its path through generations.
The structure of PE in 1987 was more styled for readers who would be interested in “how-to” guides and sermon style articles. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | What?! Honestly, what?! I can’t understand it when read by its meaning (scandal). The cross was a disgrace against public morality? In the sense that Jesus’ own people turned against him and hung him, tortured him, maybe so. But it was in fact that exact action that saved humankind; it is the point that Jesus was the sacrifice.
Throughout the next few sections of the book Noll talked so much about the history of evangelicals and the church it made me sick. It was so hard to get through and I felt like I was in a fight with the text. “Push, push, and push through the words to get to the good part” I would tell myself. Honestly, I had a hard time with this book. It was a heavy language style for me. One portion of the history I did enjoy reading about was the Puritans. I had no idea that they were so intellectual. I thought, from what I knew, about history, that they were overzealous and killed those who should not have been killed. The fact that they tried to maintain a balance between “spirit and philosophy” (Noll, 41) says something of their culture of the time. I also learned that when the church and state first had separated, some states still kept prayer in meetings, tested state office on religious subject, and gave tax to support ministers (Noll, 64). That is amazing.
Although I understood some things still yet other things I had to let go because I couldn’t grasp it. And that is difficult for me to admit. I consider myself smart, but when faced with the challenge of reading Noll I find myself inadequate. But maybe that is exactly what Noll wants out of his readings. After finishing the book perhaps Noll wants his readers to take a look at themselves and say, “hey, you, yes you, are you really using your mind? Are you really as intellectual and smart as you think you are?” And then they will ponder and find that they are extremely not what they thought they were. And then that is when Christ can come in and say, “Yes, now then, let us work on your intellect. Now that you know, it is me who enriches even your mind. Give me your mind.” I think that is Noll’s platform, “Evangelicals! Give Christ your mind!”
I was vaguely familiar with Gilgamesh from the time I studied it in high school. I remember at that time we had an assignment: to act out a portion of the story with a group assigned in class. I remember that my group chose to focus on how Enkidu became civilized, specifically, how the harlot civilized him. We were just kids then, and now as I re-read the story instead I find it fascinating that there is a piece of literature that so closely resembles the biblical account of Noah and the flood, and yet Gilgamesh was written in a time before this biblical account. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | Many of the articles are lengthier than its 2007 counterpart and there are less pictures and advertisements in the 1987 edition as well. Numerous authors failed to have a focused article. They often strayed on tangents of topics concerning whatever platform they were passionate about. One such author, R.L. Dresselhaus, used scripture to introduce and conclude his topic but the bulk of his articles were concerning whatever opinion or platform he wished. He, like others, did not have a focused target audience and switched between speaking to already converted peoples and unconverted peoples. He often used reinforcing language to persuade readers of his own brand of theology. Dresselhaus was not alone in this language style; numerous other authors of 1987’s Pentecostal Language used reinforcing language to persuade others of Assemblies of God beliefs, or, of their own personal opinions.
Robert Cunningham, who was the editor of PE for over thirty years, wrote a piece about the mind. His basic theory is that evangelicals are to give their entire minds to Christ. The title of his article, “’ I Surrender All That I Think’ Beware of the brainwash [sic]” (4) suggests that the article is about being intellectual. In reality the article is more about being anti-intellectual than anything else. One of the main rewarding features of studying his article is that he shows a language pattern that matches Burke’s guilt-redemption cycle. During the 1980s many scandals surfaced concerning the morality and ethics of Assemblies of God ministers. He states, “That is why [concerning data stored in brains of believers] unscrupulous men resort to brainwashing. They want to replace people’s beliefs with their own; and they will go to any length, using cruel methods if necessary, to do this” (4). This is an indirect statement concerning the televangelists and other ministers of that day who were unethical. In short, Cunningham was attempting to purge ministers of the Assemblies of God of the guilt surrounding moral failure.
Another author in the April 26 issue of PE showed the same purging style. Lowell Landstrom wrote the article, “Contemporary vs. Traditional Gospel Music” (8). He writes of the danger rock and roll music imparts on evangelicals. The true intent, however, of his article is defending his own belief in allowing up-beat music. He states this very plainly throughout his text but then he makes a statement that marks his own guilt-redemption cycle, “We should beware of songs presented in the flesh rather than in the Spirit. It is possible a sincere Christian can perform music that is carnal and harmful just as a sincere minister can inadvertently tell a story that is…suggestive. This is why Paul the apostle said, ‘For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret’ (Ephesians 5:12) [parenthesis not researchers] For this reason, I do not endorse heavy metal Christian music” (9). In truth Lundstrom is purging himself of an ever present sense of guilt in using contemporary music. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | My generation of girls became so fixed with waiting that we identified ourselves with finding the right man.
Starting my years at Central Bible College was wonderful. Why CBC? Well, I was taught that if I were to be a missionary I should consider a Bible College instead of a secular college. That thinking is a direct influence of my youth pastor. I was always active in dramas in my church. I was always told that I am a very good actress. So what other major would I choose? Actually, I considered a major in missions but after winning a scholarship for drama I decided that I should have a drama major to go along with it. And I am so thankful for my decision I had made at that naive time.
When I started my freshman year I must admit that education was not on the forefront of my mind. And I know that you, the reader, can guess what was. That’s right! Finding the ONE! I was directly influenced that at CBC you are supposed to find your life mate. He is out there somewhere, just ‘wait’ and it will happen. Well, crush after crush and it did NOT happen. I never dated at CBC. And because of this I was taught to think that maybe God wanted me to be single. Well, if my man didn’t show up by then, we ladies should consider the fact that maybe God wants us not to get distracted by getting married. And so the second phase of my relationship pursuing began; bitterness and worry!
I would pray and pray, “God if you want me to be single, than I am willing” I said as I still peeked out the corner of my eye at the crushes I had. It took me a while to learn that desiring to get married was good and fine as long as it did not consume all of me. Which it did until God weaned it from me. It took a very bad relationship for me to give up my ‘chasing’ after what God was supposed to bless me with. It took growth and time and maturity.
Surrounding all of this I was also pursing how I would do ministry in the Philippines. Drama was always on the forefront of my mind and so I started to desire to use Drama in the mission field. My culture has taught me that I should nurture educationally what talents I have or what field in which I would like to work in. Thank God I didn’t follow the American theme: “We live to Work!” Instead, I follow my subcultures (the American Church) theme: “We live to serve!” And so in order to serve the best that I can I want to learn all that I can about drama ministry and how I can use that effectively to reach others for Christ.
I have now been married for almost two years and I have grown and changed so much. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | My goal is to discuss and come to a theory of why the Story of the Flood found in Gilgamesh similarly compares to the Biblical Noah account.
The Noah account of the flood can be found in Genesis 6:9-9:28 of the Old Testament. Herbert Wolf, author of An Introduction to the Old Testament Pentateuch, writes, “The first section [chapters 1-11] deals quickly with the origin of the universe and the creation of man, tracing the fall of Adam and the rapid growth of sin. Following a detailed account of devastation brought by the flood, Moses [said to be author of Genesis] shows how the descendants of Noah’s three sons repopulated the world.” (pg. 80) I asked myself, “how can two pieces of literature be so different and yet so similar?” They are similar in the fact that they both make an account of a human God, or gods, wanting to destroy mankind by sending a flood. And they both make an account of how one man builds a boat and rescues creatures and kin in order to survive the flood. They are also similar in the way that Noah and Utnapishtim exit the boat.
Noah’s account is about God needing to destroy the wickedness that has overcome mankind, seeing Noah’s faith and fervor, God spares him by instructing Noah to build an ark, or, a boat and put on it 2 of every kind of animal. In this way Noah, the animals, and Noah’s kin are spared. I first observed that although the two different literary works have a different purpose, their stories are very similar in nature. But there is a problem, Gilgamesh is said to have been written circa 2000 B.C. and the biblical account of Noah, or for that matter, the book of Genesis wasn’t written until circa 1446-1406 B.C. In Nelson’s Complete Book of Bible Maps & Charts it states that Moses would have used, “older written sources and oral traditions…wisdom of the Egyptians…all available records, manuscripts, and oral narratives” (pg. 4) in order to write the book of Genesis.
So how could two literary works, written 600 years apart be so similar? I believe the answer lies in oral tradition. The flood is known to have happened at some time before the Patriarch period of the Old Testament, circa 2090 B.C. (Nelson, 1). So, if it is true that Gilgamesh is dated at 2000 B.C. that means for those 90 years the story was most likely passed around by word of mouth. Also, until Moses wrote down the accounts of Genesis the account of Noah was most likely passed by word of mouth. Is it possible that the two are similar because the oral traditions followed two separate lines?
The ‘lines’ I am speaking of are generational and cultural. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh |
Almost four years ago I took a course in Islam at CBC. One of the main topics of heated discussion in the class was whether or not Islam is a hostile religion. I believe that the question is even more relevant today than ever before. Looking back on the events since 9/11 I have personally observed mass media go from a hostile view of Islam and extremists to an extreme from of tolerance for Islam in America. I don’t think in 2001 we could have ever had a presidential candidate with the name Borac Obama, who has an obvious Muslim background in his family.
The Biography of the Prophet is intriguing to me because according to what I know of the history of Muhammad, the biography contradicts the personality of Muhammad. From what I know and learned in the past, I thought that Muhammad forced converts to Islam. He would conquer and take over tribes and then force them to take on the Islam religion. But according to the biography, Muhammad was written as a sort of Martyr, who was misunderstood and even humbled himself to others. After which one by one people came to see the ‘truth’ in his teaching and sought him out.
Also, there are some uncanny similarities between the ministries of Jesus and the ‘miracles’ of Muhammad. The most obvious is when he took mutton and milk and multiplied it so that there was more than enough for forty men. It is this style of writing that makes me believe the writers wanted Muhammad to be perceived as the humble prophet, who needed not to prove anything, but simply lived in truth and miracles. This sort of fallacy is the worst because it downplays the miracle and life of Jesus Christ. To me, it is like they are stealing and trying to take credit for the life and personhood of Jesus through Muhammad.
There are also a lot of stories in the biography that make it seem like part of their agenda is to provide proof of ‘witness’ or of how people ‘on their own’ converted to Islam. But the problem is that a lot of the stories are at least from a third party perspective. That is in the story the author illustrates that he heard from so-and-so who heard from so-and-so etc. I didn’t like this much because although their idea was that it provided proof of the truth of the stories, I thought it diminished the stories and made it seem all that more suspicious.
I think the thing that bothers me most about this work is that they try and exalt and lift up Muhammad as a godly man who was humble, endearing, wise, and gentle. But history contradicts the idea that Muhammad was a gentle and humble man, and I can’t help but think if Muslims today know the true history behind Muhammad’s rise to power. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | Although this research did find two specific instances where Burke’s guilt-redemption cycle applied to the text, the theory itself may not be the best choice in further study concerning Pentecostal language in Today’s Pentecostal Evangel. Perhaps a more appropriate theory would be social movement or a more specific word count study. There needs to be further development in finding the appropriate theory to apply to the text. The researcher in charge of this study is confident that she will continue to investigate the artifact presented.
For my final project, I chose to explore the successes and weaknesses of Today’s Pentecostal Evangel. I have been researching this text now for nearly three weeks and I have observed interesting changes in the structure of the magazine since 1987. I also have been doing a study of the Pentecostal language passed down over three generations and thought it would be interesting to include some of my research findings in this paper. What follows below is a detailed account of random selections pulled from the 1987 Pentecostal Evangel, from January to April, and also for Today’s Pentecostal Evangel of 2007 (both findings in printed version only).
The structure of the PE in 1987 was more styled for readers who would be interested in “how-to” guides and sermon style articles. Many of the articles are lengthier than its 2007 counterpart and there are less pictures and advertisements in the 1987 edition as well. In order to get a well balanced analysis of 1987s edition, I have pulled a random selection of articles from January to April.
The first thing I noticed was that his writing style, at first, was more in a storytelling form. He used heavy narration to talk about scripture. Dresselhaus used a soft and long transition into his main topic, and his introduction didn’t connect all that well with his main topic. He did, however, relate well socially and culturally to the people of his day by empathizing with such characters as divorced women and widows. He is not consistent in his targeted audience because he harshly shifts his focus from speaking to the believer to the non-believer.
His introduction topic was concerning the miracle of the leper in the gospels. He then related it to: if a person feels isolated there are steps he/she could take to be free of that. He is very clear in his step-by-step guide and his writing style is clearly a how-to guide in dealing with isolation. He loosely transitions to talking about prayer and the common “erroneous assumptions” concerning the belief in prayer. This is when his article turns more into a sermon than anything else and it seems this was the true reason why he wanted to write the article. He had a platform he wanted to discuss and used a social issue (some believers feeling isolated) to get there.
He uses a reinforcing message to very plainly state what should be the correct theology concerning prayer. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | But this is not his only angle. He then transitions very abruptly into a defensive style of writing concerning his own personal use of up-beat music.
So while he condemns rock and roll he defends his use of up-beat music and all in the name of God. This is also a form of the guilt-redemption cycle Kenneth Burke theorizes about because in his article he clearly has a platform to defend his integrity and motive for using up-beat music in the ministry (he is a musician). In one paragraph he states, “It is possible a sincere Christian can perform music that is carnal and harmful just as a sincere minister can inadvertently tell a story that is…suggestive.” He concludes that because Paul says that it is a shame to speak about things that are done in secret is the reason why he does not endorse heavy metal music. He shifts loosely throughout his article between preaching to believers to defending his own use of up-beat music. I was not able to conduct a word count on this article.
At least the Pentecostal Evangel at this time is uniform in its style writing. Every author that I researched had a how-to-guide mingled in their platform, all except for the last author. They were successful in the fact that they discussed issues that must have been relevant to believers at that time and for the most part they stayed true to their target audience of already converted peoples. Whenever they did discuss a how-to-guide system of conquering problems at least the advice, for the most part, was biblically based. They had a clever use of pictures and advertisements that they did not have in years past and they seemed to have wanted to lift up the integrity of the Assemblies of God ministers and ministries.
It is sad to mention that Pentecostal Evangel had more weakness than successes. Firstly, their authors were not trained very well in keeping the focus of their articles tight. The authors didn’t seem to be monitored on how much opinion is spoken throughout their column and at times it felt like the institution was defending itself and lifting itself up more than it was purposed to help believers. Also, the Pentecostal Evangel allowed for writers to discuss their own opinions to social and culture changes in society and loosely base biblical off of their opinion. The PE had no disclaimer whatsoever that the views and opinions of the authors. This is a mistake twenty years later they were sure to remedy.
In the twenty years of time, TPE has changed dramatically. In fact, it has changed so dramatically that its very purpose in production and mission has changed. Online they post the mission statement, “As the official weekly magazine of the Assemblies of God, Today’s Pentecostal Evangel fulfills the threefold mission of the church: To propagate the gospel of Jesus Christ; To give emphasis to Pentecostal distinctives [sic], including the baptism in the Holy Spirit and its desired effects in the lives of believers; To strengthen believers. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
hh | His writing style remains the same; he used a biblical passage to go into a platform that is loosely related. He used the miracle of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead to talk about fear of dying. This time Dresselhaus is more bold in his ‘how-to’ style of writing and clearly states that if a person were to follow his steps they could be freed from a fear of dying.
The concluding remarks of his article states, “Do this, and victory will be yours” (13)! He has more grammatical and punctual errors in the article than the last but he is more tied to scripture. He is clearer in giving biblical instruction in his advice than his previous article. It is still loosely based on scripture and the scripture seems to only provide for an introduction and a conclusion. He mentioned God six times, Jesus twenty-seven times, and the Holy Spirit one time.
From the title a person could assume that the article will be about intellectualism and the rights steps to using the mind. But actually the heart of the article, in its essence, turns out to be a platform for anti-intellectualism and the giving completely of ones mind to Christ. It gives no platform whatsoever for the responsibility of using the mind intellectually. This article, like all the others, is also a form for a how-to-guide. There is also a hint of Kenneth Burke’s guilt-redemption cycle revealed in the author’s words. He talks about men who brainwash people and how these men will go to any length necessary. There was no real reason to say this other than to warn his readers. I conclude that he is purging himself and possibly the A.G. of the immorality and moral failures that lurked on Assemblies of God ministers in the 1980s due to controversies that had been national coverage.
Cunningham also makes the mistake of conveying the idea that a person’s cognitive and emotional level is the same. This actually speaks against what is supposed to be the essence of the article. I also noticed that his article was the first to mention the new form of technology of that time, computers. His style of writing is the same as the others in the fact that he has a soft introduction in the beginning but then harshly transitions to his personal platform, or chosen topic. He mentioned God twelve times, Jesus ten times, and the Assemblies of God twice.
This article is my favorite, not because I like it so much but because it truly shows what happens when a minister preaches purely his opinions. Landstrom was clear to point out his angle for the article in the first paragraph, “Christians, who prefer traditional gospel music…are lined up, bayonets raised, ready to defend righteousness” (8). It is interesting that he associates traditional gospel music with righteousness. He goes on to discuss the specific topic of rock and roll music and then form very strong opinions that are loosely tied to scripture. | 28 | English | female | Bachelor of Arts | Housewife | N,N,N,N,N |
h | Any improvements to a country's health information system, while expensive up-front, will make provider monitoring much easier later on. It is recommended that Namibia set up a national health information system before implementing a pay for performance model.
In addition, the desired outcomes and targets must be decided upon, which is much easier said than done. For an illness like HIV/AIDS, number cured obviously cannot be a monitored outcome. Patients in ongoing treatment, however, and cases of HIV detected certainly can. One measure that Namibia may want to consider is number of new HIV cases detected and put on ongoing therapy, in order to ensure that the adverse selection mentioned above. In many ways, incentivizing numbers of clients rather than percentages may be a good idea to ensure comprehensive care for HIV-positive citizens.
One final recommendation for Namibia when implementing a pay for performance model, ensure that supplies are available on the anticipated level needed before introducing a bonus model. As HIV testing will likely increase, and ARVs will logically be used more as a result, stock needs to be adequate to meet increased demand. Another related recommendation is to do implement the new bonus system as fast as possible. If testing or new cases are incentivized, there is a chance that providers will hold off on HIV testing until the new system is installed and they can be paid more for providing the same service.
Provided Namibia prepare properly and set appropriate targets, pay for performance can be a critical tool in stopping the AIDS epidemic in their country. As outlined in this paper, however, when setting targets it is of the utmost importance that benchmarks be analyzed for potential consequences, including unintended effects to the provision of and quality of care. It is also important that the country ensure that its health system is both financially and technologically prepared for the additional anticipated stress to its country's healthcare infrastructure.
In cases of civil war or armed conflict, the question of how to strengthen health systems is a complicated one, as government resources and attentions are often focused on other, more immediate problems. However, the importance of providing basic medical services to all citizens cannot be understated. Individually displaced people (IDPs) have very specific medical needs due to their circumstances. Infectious diseases often run wild among IDP communities, and mental health is an ongoing issue that often goes overlooked. Some of the various issues in IDP and conflict situations are issues of access, doctor migration out of country, and financing.
While conflict often causes NGOs and bilateral agencies to intervene, this adds yet another level of coordination to the puzzle. In this paper, various armed conflicts around the world will be discussed, highlighting particular health system needs and basic health-systems failings. In addition, some common considerations, such as the common use of mobile health clinics and the provision of mental health care, are also discussed. Finally, the special case of Nepal deserves attention. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | In addition, According to N Hakamies, “Although material and human resources are significant constraints on agencies, the main challenge is to tackle ideological, managerial and policy barriers, and those related to donor influence.” Finding funding for family planning services continues to prove difficult for NGOs, and as a result they often do not exist or cannot meet the need levels of their constituencies.
Reproductive Health funding problems underscore a larger issue with a reliance on NGO services, as can often be seen in IDP situations. The ability to provide services is often reliant on funding from outside sources and its continuation is based not on the needs of those being served, but on what they can find funding to provide. Often an organization's decision to cease operations in a country has more to do with a lack of financial support than the successful completion of their programming.
There are certainly other issues with over reliance on NGO services, such as the fact that their services often don't solve the underlying infrastructure issues that will reemerge once the NGO presence is reduced. Many NGOs do not remain in-country for the post-conflict period. In effect, services are provided and once the initial emergency is over, the NGOs are gone and those still displaced must find a health provider somewhere else. This affects a country's capacity to rebuild post-conflict as well as their ability to provide services while the rebuilding effort is underway.
Another issue is the added levels of coordination that occur when working with multiple aid groups to ensure healthcare service coverage. NGO involvement in IDP aid is a fact of life, however. The critical point is that the Ministry of Health must coordinate among those organizations.
Much of the focus on healthcare provision during emergency and conflict situations revolves around the use of Mobile Health Units (MHUs). Mobile Health Units are, at their most basic, mobile service units that usually provide specific forms of both preventative and curative care. They are generally expensive, however, and the fact that they only provide services intermittently tends to affect when they are appropriate for use. According to Stephane du Mortier and Rudi Coninx, “In situations of armed conflict, the range of PHC services that can be provided is severely restricted. This means that, in any given situation, it is essential to select the priority services among the spectrum of PHC services”. MHUs are limited in the number of services they can provide and the frequency at which they are available to any one community. These considerations must be kept in mind when formulating a plan as to how to use MHUs in any conflict or emergency setting.
Du Mortier and Coninx describe their use of MHUs with the International Committee of the Red Cross during the conflict in Columbia in 2005. In this case, the rebel forces refused to allow access to the Ministry of Health in the country to citizens in areas they held. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | There are many ways in which a scheme can often become a financial disaster. Firstly, when rural insurance is developed, the risk pools the insurance organize from are often smaller, leading to a decreased risk pool. This puts the insurance organization at an immediate disadvantage, as the ability to pay out for all care needed is decreased when the risk pool is smaller. In addition, these sorts of systems, when not developed properly, may allow people to move in and out of the system with relative ease, meaning a person can pay for coverage when they need it (say when a woman becomes pregnant) and stop participating when they are in relatively good health. In other words, these people will only be adding stress to an already small risk pool, further hurting the financial viability of the organization. This problem can be fixed, usually through a waiting period during which the person is paying into the pool but not able to utilize services, but these sorts of decisions should be made before a rural insurance scheme is implemented.
Another contributor to the failing of so many of these sorts of schemes is the administrative stress of developing such schemes. For smaller schemes like these sorts of rural insurance organizations, administrative costs are high, owing to the reduced funding pool, and the high administrative needs. For instance, most administrators must negotiate rates with providers, set premiums and collect premiums from members, and coordinate recruitment into the scheme. As a result, administrative costs and fees often further hamper the organization's viability. In addition, the premium fees are often set on the basis of how much the members can pay rather than on the costs of provision of care. This means that the administrators must develop a package of services that are covered and decide what is excluded. These sorts of issues mean that administration of these insurance schemes really need qualified, experienced administrators that are often lacking in these rural areas. A poorly-run scheme with staff that is not up to the task likely will eat up potential funds with administrative fees.
A third likely reason for the failing of so many rural insurance schemes is the lack of government support that would help such a setup to thrive. Generally, donor-funded schemes will need to become independent at some point after insurance scheme has been established and the initial donor has pulled out. Due to the various high costs and issues described above, many schemes will likely find themselves unable to pay for all utilized services at some point after this. If the government has also been a stakeholder in the development process, they might be able to subsidize the insurance scheme or provide some funding to keep the organization running. If not, in many cases, the insurance scheme may find itself unable to continue running.
Having looked at some of the reasons for the high failure rate of these rural insurance schemes, what can be done when developing the scheme make it more likely to succeed? | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | Other frequent interventions to halt the spread of communicable diseases include vector control, sanitation and waste disposal, and the provision of safe food, in the hopes that those services will ease the spread of disease.
In armed conflicts that interrupt infrastructure and displace citizens, the first goal of health systems strengthening should concern provision of health care. The concern of provision poses a number of logistical issues, namely access to services and security issues for supplies. As Spiegel states
Not only are IDPs often settled in places with marginal access to begin with, but their presence causes undue pressure on services established for the communities that already existed, complicating access for everyone in the region. In addition, conflict almost always causes some disruption of healthcare services as a tactical ploy in the fighting. As an example, the WHO found that after violence erupted following the 2007 elections in Kenya, “30% of the health facilities are not functioning. This disruption in the health system is affecting routine health care delivery and emergency care services. Already there are reports of patients on Anti-Retroviral Therapy for HIV and Tuberculosis treatment being unable to access their drugs.” These sorts of shortages are quite common in conflict-affected zones, due to the increased logistical frustrations of avoiding fighting or insurgents who might steal supplies. In these sorts of logistically difficult situations, not only are basic services not accessible, but access to care is virtually impossible. Diseases that are easily treatable, such as malaria and tuberculosis, can run rampant due to insufficient resources to deal with outbreaks as well as having many people in a small area together..
As a case study of the issues relating to inadequate access to clinics and services one can look at 2007 Kenya. Extended violence broke out after the elections that year. During this conflict, the three biggest causes of morbidity and mortality were all easily treatable: acute respiratory disease, malaria, and diarrhea. In addition to a prevalence of preventable deaths, the decline of the healthcare infrastructure during conflict leads to long-term demographic health issues for countries like Kenya. As Dr. Jeff Wilkinson said at the time of the outbreak of violence, “With the unrest, the Kenyan people cannot get access to the preventive tools, such as bed nets to guard against malaria, or condoms to guard against sexually transmitted diseases. Moreover, if they get sick, they cannot make it to clinics for treatments. Since tuberculosis and HIV require long-term treatment, lack of access is a huge obstacle to controlling the diseases.” In these sorts of situations, many steps the country might have taken forward can be done away with simply due to the lack of adequate supplies.
In terms of supply security and logistics, conflict affects vaccine and drug supplies in multiple ways. Some logistical issues include the targeting of NGOs and other suppliers due to their perceived government and UN ties, disruption of supply routes by armed forces, raids and attacks, and problems transporting supplies due to terrain. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | That being said, there are some pitfalls of the pay for performance model that should be considered in the implementation phase of an HIV/AIDS-based bonus model in Namibia in order to be successful.
Firstly, it is important that the performance measures that are rewarded are 1) based on research done on current levels of treatment/access and 2) targeted at increasing quality and care. If targets are not set based on current levels of services provided, there is a chance that levels will be set too low and will not affect services provided. This was seen when the UK established a pay for performance model in the 80s. Not only did most doctors earn nearly the limit for bonuses offered (well over $100,000), but studies showed that the services provided were comparable to US rates, which did not have a bonus model. In other words, the performance measures were set too low and were too easy to meet to have any real effect on care. In addition, setting out-come based and quality-based targets must be the focus. One concern with setting a target such as total number of HIV tests administered means that providers have incentives to test people already tested recently (within the last three months, say) or people who have no risk. There is some incentive to abuse the system for providers, in other words.
Another problem with a pay for performance model is the risk that it might cause some adverse selection. If there are performance measures for the percentage of HIV-positive patients on ARVs, for instance, there would be an incentive for providers not to take on new HIV-positive clients to ensure they are still meeting these sorts of ratio benchmarks. It is important to keep in mind these sorts of unintended consequences of pay for performance implementation.
A third and final issue with the pay for performance model is the fact that it will increase administrative costs. Rather than paying providers on a salaried basis, the setting of performance targets means there will need to be follow-up to ensure services provided are not inflated and there is a new built in payment system that requires more staff. While this shouldn't discourage a country from implementing a pay for performance model, it must be considered early on, as healthcare spending will likely increase. Ensuring that the benefits outweigh the expected cost increases is of the utmost importance.
In establishing a pay for performance model, it is important that Namibia first ensure they have reliable data as to the current inefficiencies in their HIV/AIDS monitoring and treatment system, otherwise they risk setting performance targets that are too easy to meet, much like the UK did. A thorough study of how frequently HIV testing and treatment is done must be performed before targets can be realistically set.
The need for quality data is also an ongoing concern, as services provided will need to continue to be monitored once a bonus structure is put in place. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | In addition, the only aid group they allowed to enter the region was the ICRC. For these reasons, it was clear that they needed the mobility the MHUs afforded them to ensure basic services were offered to as many citizens in the occupied areas as possible.
The point above is reiterated multiple times in Du Mortier and Coninx's article: the reason why MHUs were deemed acceptable in this case is because they were used as the only option. Du Mortier and Coninx stress in their document that MHUs should not be used to substitute Ministry of Health programming, but to supplement those services only in exceptional situations where access is restricted, as a last resort, if you will. They identify very specific targets that MHUs can be used to accomplish.
Substitution: As described in the example above, where federal health programming is unable to reach citizens and IDPs, MHUs can be viewed as a temporary stopgap measure. In this case, the organization is acting as a replacement of services for leaders.
Support: In these cases, MHUs are used as a supplemental clinic to help officials meet their goals. This generally entails the establishment of common objectives between the government and the NGO which can realistically be supplemented in part by the use of MHUs.
Mobilization: In these cases, services are provided without the direct input of government officials. Support is developed among third parties that can exert pressure on government officials to take over and provide services.
It is important to note that regardless of the underlying targets, MHUs must not be viewed as permanent solutions, due to the limitations in numbers of services provided and high operating costs. In other words, MHUs are not viable stand-alone units that should be viewed as a part of the country's health infrastructure. MHUS are specifically to be used when there is no other option, and retired once the situation has stabilized.
There are many other considerations which are important to be aware of when deciding how and when to use MHUs. Du Mortier and Coninx highlight a few of these.
MHUs are often more successful for vertical programming. More specifically, MHUs are extremely good at screening and vaccinating for serious conditions that are slow to develop. Treatment for patients in the acute stage is not a recommended primary strategy for MHUs, largely due to the fact that they are only intermittently available for any population to access. Obviously, MHUs will deal with acute illnesses in many cases, but this is not their strength and should not be viewed as a primary acute care tool in the planning stage. This focus on preventative care is an important takeaway, and its usefulness in preventing communicable disease through screenings and vaccinations is a clear asset of this model. To this point, Du Mortier and Coninx make the following caveat:
As indicated by the mention of triage above, staff in MHUs must be highly trained. In addition, access to a nearby clinic for referral is critical. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h |
Equity in healthcare refers to the even distribution of access and services across a given group. Inequality and inequity are not necessarily the same thing. If inequality, among say the rich and the poor are due to financial or time constraints (i.e. the poor cannot afford certain services) it can be said that it that is an inequity. However, if there is an inequality due to consumer preferences (for example, increased utilization by the poor because they need healthcare services more), this is an inequality that does not indicate inequity. As can be noted in the above example, inequality may not always be in favor of the rich. In fact, as Rawl's notes, inequality should only be allowed in raising the status of the poor.
In discussing equity, it is important to note that there are two aspects that need to be analyzed: vertical equity and horizontal equity. Vertical equity is the distribution of services across income levels . In other words, do the richest citizens have the same level of access compared to the poorest? When looking at health systems which rely on out-of-pocket spending, equity is usually affected, with co-payments and premiums affecting access by the poorest citizens more so than the richest. Another example of vertical equity concerns healthcare financing. Financing the system via income taxes, say, is considered a vertically equitable financing mechanism, as the amount contributed is directly proportionate to a citizen's income. Sales taxes, on the other hand, would be a larger burden on the poor than the rich, and as such is not vertically equitable.
Horizontal equity refers to the distribution of services across different regions of an area, usually a country. Of particular interest here is access in urban areas vs. access in rural areas. Generally, healthcare is more easily accessible to those in urban areas, where one usually finds more healthcare providers. There are knobs by which governments can effect horizontal equity, namely through financing options, providing more money to rural providers to incentivize serving communities that traditionally have less access. Governments can also facilitate community-based health insurance schemes to help those in marginal areas increase access. CBHIs, however, may not always be vertically equitable, as the poorest are still often unable to pay premiums for service.
Governments should keep equity in mind when discussion health systems solutions. In fact, one might say it is the basis of the liberal approach to healthcare. As a rule, egalitarian liberalism is primarily concerned with equal access. There are a number of “control knobs” available to governments to affect equality, namely financing (how funds are collected for services, out of pocket vs. tax-collection), payment (how providers are paid for services provided), and regulation (establishing a basic package of services, for example).
Equity's relationship with efficiency is an important aspect for governments to consider as well. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | Before discussing the relationship between equity and efficiency, it is important to discern between the three types of efficiency:
Technical efficiency is maximizing outputs based on a given level of resources by ensuring the proper mix of resources (vaccines, equipment, drugs, and so on).
Economic efficiency consists of producing a level of effective services at the lowest cost possible.
Allocative efficiency consists of “doing the right things.” In other words, devoting resources to the most critical services and doing so in a cost-effective way.
These concepts can seem at times to be in direct opposition to the idea of equity. A good example of this tension between equity and efficiency can be seen in Oregon in the 1990s when their Medicaid system decided to prioritize health interventions based on their DALYs and what services were most cost efficient. This ground-breaking system was based on the idea of allocative efficiency. It wasn't long until a child diagnosed with leukemia was denied care because the services weren't viewed as cost-effective in Medicaid's new system. The uproar over denial of care for cancer treatments eventually led to Oregon abandoning the system altogether.
That being said, efficiency and equity are not in direct opposition, per se. One of the most attractive elements of efficiency is that it should in theory free up funding that can be devoted to providing services for the poor. “Doing more with less,” in theory at least, should mean there is more for those who rely on subsidized or free services.
In addition, efficiency does stress preventative care, as vaccinations and prevention are much more efficient options than treatment of disease. This falls in line with equality issues, as long as who to vaccinate does not become an issue, but is viewed as an allocative efficiency issue (IE coverage for all) rather than a technical efficiency issue, which may value vaccinating those close to a clinic, but devalue the cost of reaching those in hard-to-reach communities.
Equity should be one of the most fundamental considerations in all health systems strengthening efforts, and should be the aim of any system. While there may not be any perfectly equitable system, it is clear that those systems that run largely on out-of-pocket payments (as in most developing countries) or private insurance-based systems like the US (where insurance providers often participate in adverse selection to decrease their risk) largely are not equitable. While health systems that provide universal coverage are generally more equitable, there are still other considerations, such as how funds are raised, the distribution of healthcare providers across the country, and so on.
The reason for the mixed success of many donor-funded rural insurance schemes is complicated. In theory, providing a risk-pooling scheme for areas where nothing existed before seems rather straightforward. In practice, however, these communities often have certain issues developing viable, sustainable health insurance schemes.
The primary reason many of the rural insurance schemes have failed in the past is due to insufficient funding. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | Was this situation an aberration, or can health status continue to improve event during armed conflict within a country? Devkota and Teijlingen think that the lessons learned by analyzing Nepal's approach towards health systems during civil war can indeed be applied elsewhere, and for good reason. At the end of the day, the primary takeaway message is that of coordination, a common theme even in the most stable of countries when discussing health systems. Coordination among the Ministry of Health and community offices, passing off duties when appropriate. Coordination between the Ministry of Health and international agents, such as the UN or NGOs. However, the conflict in Nepal had its own set of rules that likely don't exist in other areas.
In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, NGO workers are regularly held hostage or killed due to their perceived western ties. In many conflicts aid organizations are often viewed as a target. In Nepal, the NGOs tended to keep a low profile which might have helped in this case. Of course, the bigger issue is involvement by both sides of the conflict. The idea that both sides will choose not to interfere with healthcare provision is simply unrealistic in many areas of the world. While utilizing the existing healthcare infrastructure as Nepal was able to do would be ideal, in genocides, such as in Rwanda or the Sudan, expecting both sides of the conflict to make efforts not to impede healthcare access is unrealistic.
In addition, Nepal's situation was unlike many countries dealing with internal conflict and IDPs. The effect of the continued growth of the national GDP cannot be understated, as the relationship between increased GDP and increased health indicators (such as the MDGs Nepal is on track to meet) is quite close. While internal conflict would certainly mitigate some of the expected improvements due to GDP, those increases, as well as the infrastructure investments, likely played an important role in helping health status continue to improve through the ten year war.
There are some takeaways from Nepal and the other literature reviewed that can be applied to all conflict situations, however. Firstly, increasing preventative care is of clear importance, as was also seen in the discussion of using MHUs in IDP situations. Vaccinations and screenings can do much to stop the spread of infectious diseases before a full-fledged outbreak of malaria occurs. In addition to preparation and disease monitoring, flexibility in these sorts of volatile, unpredictable situations is a clear priority.
The sorts of special considerations in Afghanistan and the Sudan should not be viewed as insurmountable obstacles. In an ideal world (more Nepal than some of the other cases) conflict would not affect citizens' access to healthcare and qualified health workers. However, as seen, there are real consequences that can be expected when internal conflict erupts (geographic and financial barriers and the brain drain). The international community has certainly worked hard at establishing frameworks for working in these sorts of situations, but there is still work to be done in developing plans to mitigate the long-term effects of some of these issues. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | In addition, service-specific strategies mean healthcare professionals can be trained or separately for multiple different vertical programs, reducing the time available to treat patients. As can be seen vertical programs cause redundancies that often lead to a decrease in health sector efficiency.
Health system responses, on the other hand, have the benefit of strengthening the framework by addressing underlying issues affecting access, quality, and efficiency across the healthcare system. When these sorts of root problems are addressed, improvements can be seen in all aspects of health services delivery, rather than one specific, focused area. This approach has limitations as well, primarily fact that goals are much less focused and require much more coordination among stakeholders. In addition, the lack of clear, direct goals lead to discouragement among actors. These difficulties, though, are not surmountable, and the long-term strengthening benefits of health-systems wide approaches make this preferable to programmatic interventions.
In defining next steps in improving neonatal and maternal healthcare in Indonesia, one must discuss the ability of the government to make changes that will improve services and service utilization. Of particular concern is the fact that the current system is largely decentralized and underfunded, with the vast majority of Indonesian citizens lacking insurance, almost 74%. Healthcare funding is largely done on the community level, with federal funding being doled out and the implementation and management of those funds left on the community level. It has been shown that many of the poorer districts have seen their healthcare grants increase, but have not had the ability to increase services due to the infrastructure.
In addition, the majority of the payment mechanisms in Indonesia are fee-for-service, with some capitated payments thrown in. There are no incentives for providing services towards the MDG goals. As a result, the recommendation for Indonesian health systems strengthening are two-fold: An increased federal investment in a social insurance scheme and the development of a pay for performance bonus system for certain services offered.
Developing a social insurance mandate has occurred somewhat for federal employees, with the employees and employers paying a percentage of the premium. Continuing to develop a system with a wider reach, much like Thailand developed, should help solve a number of the access issues. In addition, expanding federal insurance coverage for the poor should help ensure a more equitable distribution of care. In addition, ensuring that social insurance is available for all employed citizens (with an additional federal or federally subsidized program for the unemployed and indigent) ensures that there is accountability, rather than throwing more money at district governments than they know what to do with.
In addition, the development of a “bonus” system for providing antenatal and postnatal care should provide an incentive for doctors to continue care for both mother and child. Perhaps offering bonuses for meeting certain thresholds, such as number of births attended or mean number of visits with children under five years. This practice can also be extended to other health sector performance issues.
| 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | Nepal was embroiled in a bloody civil war from 1996 until 2006. Surprisingly, however, they are still on track to meet 16 of the 19 Millennium Development Goals by 2015. While they are unlikely to meet the reproductive health targets, some of the goals Nepal is on track to meet include under-five and maternal mortality targets and disease-specific goals (halting the spread of HIV and malaria). The question is, how was Nepal able to meet these targets even when dealing with civil conflict and internally displaced people?
Devotka and van Teijlingen identify multiple reasons why Nepal was successful even during such trying times. Some of the relevant items with regard to maintaining and strengthening health systems include:
Neither side purposely disrupted health systems during the conflict. Though the conflict led to a decrease in service utilization, due to access problems, the rebels overall looked favorably on health services and made no efforts to deny access to citizens during the fighting.
The rebels made an effort to ensure health clinics in their area were still sufficiently staffed and supplied. Most clinics in rebel-held areas were sufficiently staffed and had supplies. While many of the clinics were operated without trained health professionals, they still received regular training and supplies.
Key actors increased coordination in response to the conflict, while maintaining a low profile. Regular meetings continued between the Ministry of Health (MOH) and community officials. In addition, the international organizations that responded by providing services kept a low profile. The one issue identified here, however, is the lack of clarity coming from the country level to all actors. While provisions were made for free care to poor citizens, criteria as to who qualified was not laid out to clinics. Similarly, communication between the MOH and international organizations was not identified as a strength of the program.
Public health and more traditional service providers also increased their efforts during the conflict. In addition, community clinics were handed over to the communities to manage, as the federal government did not have adequate resources to manage them during the conflict. Programming for the elderly and indigent was increased, and many traditional female “attendants” saw their role increased.
GDP in the country continued to rise during the extended conflict, and infrastructure improvements likely also contributed. These factors likely helped the country stay on track for the MDGs. The infrastructure improvements (roads and electricity) likely improved access for many citizens.
There are clear lessons for developing a health systems strengthening approach in other conflict situations here. Namely, commitment from both sides of the conflict to not disrupting the health provision infrastructure in the country is key. Ensuring clinics still run and funds are in place can help to minimize the effects of access and migration. In addition, the government must be able to hand off some of the management to provincial or community levels, especially in rebel-held zones where they have limited access.
So what are the takeaways from the Nepal case study? | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | This support often is vertical and often doesn't take the full IDP situation into account. In fact, over 50% of African countries did not mention their IDPs in their HIV National Strategic Plans and Global Fund proposals indicating a lack of awareness of the need to build capacity for this portion of the population within their borders. This goes largely back to the issue of location. IDPs are often in inaccessible areas where governments don't have health programs and don't have the funds to initiate them. In addition, countries have a basic responsibility to care for refugees, based on the 1951 refugee convention but no such mandate exists for IDPs. As an anecdotal example, the WHO cited one of the failings with the Kenya emergency response in 2007 to be that the emergency response plan was only 28% funded.
In response to some of these issues, the World Bank has issued grants for a number of projects that include micro-financing for healthcare services in IDP situations. Generally these grants pay to rehabilitate the physical structures, often in conjunction with schools and other buildings that offer similar services. However, these sorts of grants generally are post-conflict. Effective financing mechanisms during conflict to ensure access for the most vulnerable is largely done through grants and donations to NGOs or UN services where the country's health infrastructure is insufficient.
In many conflict zones, NGOs “pick up the slack” in providing healthcare services to citizens and IDPs. This is reliant on government cooperation and funding, whether via grants or private funding. In these frequent situations, coordination between agencies is of the utmost importance, as is earning the trust and commitment of country leadership. When collaboration with the government does not exist, NGOs can find it impossible to work. In March 2009, in response to President Omar Al-Bashir's indictment by the International Criminal Court, 13 major aid organizations were kicked out of the country, including Medecines Sans Frontiers, OXFAM, CARE, Save The Children, and the IRC. This expulsion left 1.5 million people without access to healthcare, according to the UN. Most of these organizations were never allowed back into the Sudan, leaving much smaller NGOs to take over programming for health and education services, which they were not equipped for. Similarly, in 2009 Ethiopia suspended the operations of around 40 NGOs, (mostly smaller organizations) for operations “outside of their mandate”. While these sorts of situations occur infrequently, it does point to one of the real issues with the reliance on NGOs in conflict situations. If the government does not support their mission, they can be kicked out, leaving vulnerable populations without access to basic health care.
One area that is of particular concern is that of providing reproductive health in IDP and refugee situations. Due to the ever-changing US government stance on the “Mexico City Policy,” also known as the “Global Gag Rule,” which is the refusal to fund organizations involved in any sort of abortion programming, reproductive health can be a difficult area for many NGOs reliant on USAID funding to work in. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | What is so intriguing about is the fact that during a ten year conflict within the country from 1996-2006, there was improvement in 16 of 19 Millennium Development Goals at the same time. This goes against traditional thinking, that during conflict health indicators will regress. Are there lessons that can be taken away for future conflict interventions?
The international response to the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s was, in the words of Dr. Paul Spiegel, “disastrous” . The UN had very little presence in the country for the majority of the conflict, largely due to US reticence to intervene. In 2000, the UN accepted responsibility for not doing enough to prevent the 1994 genocide. In response, and to ensure an appropriate response in the future, the international community developed the Sphere minimum standards for healthcare in emergency situations. Some of these standards, as found in the 2011 update of The Sphere Project's manual are:
Health Service Delivery – People have equal access to effective, safe and quality health services that are standardized and follow accepted protocols and guidelines.
Human Resources - Health services are provided by trained and competent health work- forces who have an adequate mix of knowledge and skills to meet the health needs of the population.
Prioritizing Health Services - People have access to health services that are prioritized to address the main causes of excess mortality and morbidity.
Communicable Disease Prevention - People have access to information and services that are designed to prevent the communicable diseases that contribute most significantly to excess morbidity and mortality. (Malaria and Dengue fever are of particular interest here)
Outbreak Detection and Response - Outbreaks are prepared for, detected, investigated and controlled in a timely and effective manner.
As of 2005, the number of IDPs in the world was estimated to be 25 million, with another 120 million adversely affected by conflict though not officially displaced. In the last 15 years, access to healthcare has improved in conflict situations, but there is still a long way to go. 4 of the 5 countries with the highest under 5 mortality rate are conflict affected (Sierra Leone, Angola, Afghanistan, and Liberia). Just as concerning are the apparent disparities between populations affected differently by the same conflict. Healthcare services to internally displaced people has not improved to the same level as services for refugees. There are a number of reasons for this. IDPs generally don't have a “hub” similar to a refugee camp, for example, that would facilitate healthcare service provision. In addition, Spiegel points to the “poor access to services and the absence of mandate and funding for one agency to assume decisive responsibility for non-refugee populations” as a complicating issue . In other words, the lack of an international mandate to serve IDPs, like the one that exists for people deemed worthy of “refugee” status, complicates issues. Complicating the situation even further, providing care often proves to be costly and difficult for many reasons, some of which are further discussed below.
| 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | Firstly, when developing a plan, it is important for the donors and those implementing the project to look to success stories to see what can be learned. There are plenty of cases of successful projects, perhaps most notably the development of community-based health insurance into the national healthcare financing plan in Rwanda.
The Rwanda example also illustrates the importance of involving the government, both at a country-wide level and the community level, at an early stage and getting commitment from them before implementation of any rural insurance scheme. With government backing, one might be able to get additional funding, or at least a “safety net” that may be willing to help the insurance organization should it experience funding problems in the future.
Thirdly, it is important that the rural insurance scheme be developed to provide at the very least a basic set of services that can be paid for. In other words, the insurance scheme will need to ensure from the start that catastrophic costs are not going to cause the entire scheme to fold. As undesirable as it may be, that may mean that services will need to be excluded from coverage (for example, paying for outpatient services at clinics but not paying for hospital services). Related to this is the consideration mentioned earlier about a waiting period before services can be utilized. Another benefit of such a setup would be additional revenue from people unable to use funds yet, helping the insurance scheme stay afloat.
Rural health insurance can work, and there are certainly examples of that. The important part is that before implementation an experienced staff is put together to develop a financially stable, realistic system. Restriction of services, waiting periods, and whether or not to subsidize premiums for the poor to expand equity are all issues that need to be considered and planned for in developing any new insurance scheme.
Pay for performance is being utilized by more health systems these days for good reason. In many ways, this payment structure, when used in an intelligent manner, can increase health outcomes and increase health access. When performance incentives are set up to measure outcomes, say the percentage of HIV-positive patients put on anti-retroviral therapy, increased health status should be a clear outcome. This also adds to efficiency, as performance targets can be set to reward providers who provide low-cost, high effectiveness treatments and interventions. Preventative care and screening, say HIV testing during regular checkups, can also add to efficiency, as HIV testing and screening has been shown to be a cost-effective intervention by the CDC. In addition, for performance-based measures, physicians often have incentives to provide certain services to as much of the population as possible. Incentivizing the number of clients upon which HIV tests are performed for example, leads to increasing access for patients to HIV screening, and should result in physicians offering these services to patients they would not have offered this service to otherwise. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | As IDP camps tend to be located in remote, marginal areas, there typically is no easy supply route to avoid stock outs. In Iraq in 2006, for example, only about 30% of clinics reported an adequate supply of essential drugs.
A second major issue, and one that has long-term post-conflict implications, is of doctor migration out of the country, also known as the “Brain Drain”. While the “Brain Drain” traditionally occurs due to a lesser-developed country not being able to offer competitive compensation to in-country doctors, conflict can have the same effect. In fact, physician migration has occurred time and time again during unrest in a country. Over half of Cuba's doctors left during the revolution. Zimbabwe lost over two thirds of their physicians in the 1990s. Even in Iraq today, it is estimated that over half of the doctors have left the country, many for Jordan. It should be noted that the doctor loss was most severe in Baghdad, likely due to the intensity of the conflict there. In 2006 alone, 28% of specialists left Baghdad. Other areas of Iraq saw numerous Baghdad doctors relocate to their areas rather than leave the country entirely. Nevertheless, the proportion of doctors who migrated in Iraq is startling. In addition, around 75% of the doctors who have left are expected not to return to Iraq after the conflict is over. In Iraq, the reasons for doctor migration vary, including about 13% who stated they left due to threats of kidnapping or murder.
Complicating the “Brain Drain” problem even further is the traditional issue of physician compensation. Even for providers who don't suffer from threats of violence against them, in a place like Iraq today they cannot afford to hold on to the existing doctors. As stated by Agron Ferati in the Brookings Institute's 2009 panel, “Monitoring Health Services among Iraqi Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons,” “Why should I remain in Baghdad as a surgeon, when I can go in Dubai and earn $5,000 salary, while in Baghdad I risk my own life, my family’s lives, for $600 or $700?” This problem only surface in Iraq after the war. This issue is not constrained to only doctors, either. In 2006 it was found that only about 30% of all healthcare staff positions were filled.
In a place like Iraq, the “Brain Drain” is a very real issue that threatens long-term health systems stability. Increasing the number of doctors trained in their medical schools is one way to counteract the problem, but in the shorter term, doctor shortage will further contribute to the access issues already facing the country. While everyone in Iraq, even IDPs, have access to healthcare, the quality is sure to suffer, particularly in Baghdad.
Another important aspect of health systems in conflict situations is the question of where the financial resources will originate from. Government support in extended conflicts typically wanes, increasing reliance on NGO and bilateral agency funding for health-sector funding. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h |
The rate of neonatal and infant mortality in Indonesia remained rather static for the last ten years. While the country is on track to meet many of the Millennium Development Goals, such as the water and sanitation targets, the rates of improvement for child and maternal health are woefully short of the improvements needed to meet their target goals by 2015. The multiple reasons for these shortcomings will be discussed below, and point to a need to strengthen the health system rather than focus on programmatic interventions.
Indonesia has made improvements in the number of births with a skilled health worker attending, with 72% of births now meeting this target. That being said, this category still includes traditional workers, such as midwives, who cannot provide medical interventions should the pregnancy be complicated (hence the large percentage of maternal deaths caused by hemorrhage). In other words, the improvements made in this particular indicator are somewhat misleading and there is still much work to be done. In addition, there has been a decline in the percentage of diarrheal cases in children under five years treated by a health professional. While data on postnatal care is incomplete, it is clear that this area is also of concern, with low rates across the country.
Cesarian-section rates are still lower than should be expected, around 4%. The c-section rates additionally point to another concerning issue. While the rate of c-section is 7% in urban settings, it is only 2% in rural. This points to the problem of equity of coverage across the country. Clearly access to healthcare services is focused around urban areas. Another issue of access concerns vertical equity. There is a 27% gap in service utilization between the poorest and richest quintiles. Clearly the poor are finding it much more difficult to access healthcare services, likely due to out of pocket costs.
In discussing next steps towards improving neonatal and maternal care indicators, the most basic question is how to most effectively address the lack of service. Specifically, should Indonesia develop program-specific approaches or strengthen the overall health system without focusing on pre and post-pregnancy care for the mother and child. There is no question that programmatic approaches to solve the problems outlined above are attractive. Not only do “vertical approaches” that target one sector of improvements have much more targeted, manageable objectives, they also generally generate faster results. There are some drawbacks to keep in mind, however. One major drawback is that investing heavily in programming for one particular area of the health sector often means that funding for other areas suffers and human resources will flock towards working in that area that has more resources (the effect of international funding to HIV/AIDS and its effect on the family planning sector is one example). In addition, running multiple parallel programs for one area results in duplication of services that are also uncoordinated between programs. This leads to an increase in forms and paperwork for supplies and funding. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h | As stated by Du Mortier and Coninx:
Du Mortier and Coninx go on to say that in their experience, patients will likely refuse transport to a clinic due to fears about where they are going and their ability to return to their families, but the option to receive further treatment is important for the clinic to be viewed as a legitimate healthcare option.
Du Mortier and Coninx are also very careful to state that MHUs should not be viewed as an evaluation tool. MHUs do not provide assessments as to the state of health in an area, but are a treatment intervention ONLY.
As evidenced by Mortier and Coninx, MHUs are useful tools for providing some basic preventative and (barring any other options) acute health care when access is otherwise unavailable. It is important to reiterate that MHUs should be viewed as a last resort in providing medical services during conflict, not as a first option, which may often be the case when planning for interventions in conflict situations, due to their perceived flexibility.
The importance of providing mental health care, and screening for IDPs suffering from emotional issues is important for many reasons, one of which is the high rate of prevalence. In one study on survivors of the Kosovo conflict, it was found that of participants in one study:
While it may seem obvious, survivors of conflict situations often have very specific mental health needs. Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) has integrated mental healthcare into their emergency response module. Community level workers are “trained to identify and refer cases of mental disorders and epilepsy to the MSF mobile health clinics where the mental health team provided proper diagnosis and treatment.”. In Mueller's study, referrals to MSF in the Mindanao region of the Philippines were tracked, with 96% of those treated for emotional distress reporting a traumatic event, ( 54% home evacuation, 26% conflict, 5% destruction of property). The patients were tracked throughout brief psychotherapy sessions, and the results showed a marked improvement (via their scores on a self-reporting questionnaire).
What are the implications of this study? Not only is the provision of mental healthcare during conflict situations feasible, but it is proven to be effective. The WHO has recommended incorporating mental health as one of the screening services offered by MHU, with referrals to trained mental health professionals as seen fit. It seems that adding mental health screening to MHU tasks has been shown in programming to be an effective tool for the future. Clearly, immediate conflict response focuses on morbidity and mortality, and rightly so. The international community, however, has correctly identified mental health as an important and under-appreciated aspect of conflict response and is taking steps to ensure those aspects are addressed moving forward.
In light of the many issues that make health service provision so difficult in IDP settings, it is useful to identify successes amid the confusion. In Understanding effects of armed conflict on health outcomes: the case of Nepal, Bhimsen Devkota and Edward R van Teijlingen find one such case. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
h |
Between 2000 and 2006 there were 30 communicable disease outbreaks in 14 different conflict-affected countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Ebola, Marburg, monkeypox, cholera, plague) and the Sudan (meningitis, relapsing fever, hepatitis E, ebola, cholera). The most common diseases in the Sudan include pneumonia, measles, and malaria. The WHO document, “Communicable Disease Risk Assessment: Protocol For Humanitarian Emergencies” explains why communicable diseases are such a huge issue for both refugee populations and IDPs .
The reasons for this increased risk is mostly straight-forward. Lack of adequate drinking water and sanitation leads to an increased incidence of water-borne diseases. Malaria is of particular concern. According to the WHO, malaria is endemic in over 80% of the areas currently experiencing humanitarian emergencies. Overcrowding facilitates transmission of measles, acute respiratory infections, and meningococcal diseases. Decreased nutrition makes it much more likely that displaced people will become sick after exposure. The high number of vulnerable populations (i.e. children, women and elderly) in IDP settings. Complicating the issue even further, IDP populations usually are not sufficiently vaccinated to prevent epidemics.
Some of the threats posed by communicable diseases in IDP settings according to the WHO include:
Increased incidence of endemic disease – Increased morbidity and mortality from diseases like HIV/AIDS.
Increased risk of epidemics – With over 65% of outbreaks of international importance originating in conflict settings.
Increased duration of epidemics – Due to delays in detection, poor access to healthcare and drugs.
Rapid emergence of drug resistance – Due to disruption of treatment and poor compliance and the use of outdated or inappropriate drugs regimens.
Emerging diseases (Marburg & Ebola) and eradication projects (Guinea Worm & polio) both pose their own threats.
Recognizing the ongoing issue of infectious disease, the international community has stressed the importance of preventing disease transmission among IDP communities. The WHO has developed a three-step framework to identify communicable disease risk in conflict and disaster situations.
Event Description – Characterizing the nature of the event and the characteristics of those displaced can help to determine the risk of communicable disease outbreak among the population.
Threat/Vulnerability Assessment – Here, an in-depth assessment of the host, the agent, and the environment is carried out to analyze what attributes (for example, vaccination prevalence, recent epidemics, or access to safe water) might increase the risk of an epidemic among the displaced.
Risk Assessment – Likelihood and magnitude of disease outbreaks are calculated and interventions are prioritized based on cost, availability of supplies, and so on.
Even with this framework in place, however, the recent Cholera epidemic in Haiti shows that there is still work to be done in preventing disease outbreaks in IDP communities. Part of the issue is the lack of availability of sufficient funding and access, both of which will be discussed further. In recent years, prevention of the spread of infectious diseases has become a priority in IDP healthcare, as so many of the deaths in IDP camps are preventable. | 31 | English | male | pursuing a Master's of Public Health | student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
ff | The pianist represents the woman who is stronger than Edna, able to “soar above…tradition and prejudice.” Indeed, about Riesz, Arobin says, “I’ve heard she’s partially demented.” Edna replies, “She seems to me wonderfully sane” (106). Edna finally decides that she will never be happy in a life role that “feed[s] upon opinion” (117). In the end, “[t]here was no one thing in the world that she desired. There was no human being whom she wanted near her…” (138) She realizes that even her infatuation with the local playboy would be temporary. This is her epiphany that there is no identity accessible to her, and reconcilable to her, once awake. In This Boy’s Life: A Memoir, Tobias Wolff recounts a critical period of his youth during which he seeks an identity and therefore, like Edna, he struggles to find his place in the world. While Edna becomes convinced that there is no place for her in this world, Toby ultimately realizes that the only place he might assume an identity which is true to his self is in the army, apart from his mother and apart from the man she allows to stifle him. The novel itself barely goes that far – a failed prep school attempt marks the end of this story – but as it is an autobiographical text we should not ignore the author’s life as a larger, relevant context. Even in isolation the text reveals that the stepfather had to be transcended in order for the boy to even attempt an identity. The crucial difference between the two stories is that Edna’s husband is ineffective in hindering her search, while Toby’s stepfather Dwight is able to deliberately interfere with the boy’s inner growth. To illustrate exactly how Wolff reveals that Dwight denied him any identity of his own is not my purpose here, but it is pertinent that getting away from the stepfather was a vital step in the boy’s finding his place in the world. The stories both reveal a resolution which almost declares, “To thine own self be true!” Edna resolves her personal existential conflict by swimming forever into the ocean, a fate that satisfies her on a self-derived level, and Toby only ever feels truly himself in the role of a soldier with a gun (maybe he gets it from his mother, who is a gun expert), thus his resolution is more than freeing himself from Dwight or from the powerlessness of childhood, and it is more than becoming an illusion that is viewed as praiseworthy, such as a prep-school student; it is to become a subject of the U.S. military. Biographically speaking, we are able to see that in maturity he continues to self-actualize into roles which fit into society. His thwarted aspiration to participate in the prestigious academic world becomes fulfilled later on with his position at Stanford University, and his undeveloped childhood interest in writing is fulfilled by the success of his novels. | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | Therefore, she gets no support from her husband in her endeavor to deviate from social norms. Finally, the narrator connects Edna’s awakening to her act of inhabiting a separate house:
The narrator previously makes an overt reference to the “law of society” (29), for something as trivial as how to wear one’s hair. Imagine, then the extent of such “law.” Edna creates for herself the experience of a subsidized woman living alone in her community. She is aware that she loses status socially, but this only teaches her that social loss gives her inner peace. She realizes that abandoning responsibility makes her feel alive. For the first time in her life, she views existence as something that can be glimpsed from beyond the notions of others, and recognizes her whole reality as merely a construct of convention. She is awake because she no longer derives purpose from “opinion,” and thus she becomes an anomaly—someone finding fulfillment in social failure. How, then, can she transcend her social reality? What identity might bring her peace of mind? Her friend Riesz seems to know more than the reader, as she demonstrates with an astute prediction about Edna’s ability to assume a similarly openly defiant role. Edna’s attitude about work is a major clue about her state of mind. She is not working to have an identity in society or to increase her social status, as she could in an endeavor to successfully rebel against the dominant view of women. Instead she is “devoid of ambition…[S]triving not toward accomplishment, she drew satisfaction from the work in itself” (96). Overall, we are to take the message that the only way Edna is willing to live is completely in her own reality.
The title of Wolff’s book is a kind of pun which deliberately calls attention to a magazine for boy scouts called “Boy’s Life.” While the literal meaning of the title clearly designates the novel as the memoir of a boy, the reference to the magazine both in the title and as an element of the story is a representation of identity, one that surrounds the first socially esteemed group Toby is inspired to join. Devotion to participating in and deriving character from the scout activities and all the ethical principles taught by the organization appears to the boy to be the first station in society both prestigious and realistically accessible. The magazine is targeted for the scouts, the parents, the activity leaders, and anyone else interested. It presents a discourse of ideas and values which extend far beyond scouting practice, permeating each aspect of life, from personal to global. We understand that the advertisements and images are psychologically geared to both influence readers and address their mentality. Even the manual given to the scouts, “Handbook for Boys,” integrates ideology into its system for achievement and advancement. Toby is drawn to more than the uniform he might physically and mentally wear; he is enticed by all the scout notions of character and strength that become an identity. | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | She’d rather flagrantly flout convention and make no shrewd plans or excuses for herself. The narrator presents us with the result of an awakening that combines awareness with rebellion. We are told that Edna is “casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world” (79). And how deeply does Edna’s rejection of group standards run? When the subject of children comes up between Adelle and her, the two are completely unable to communicate. We learn that at the root of Edna’s unease is a feeling so alien to Adelle, who feels alive when participating in the societal model of normality, that they could not “understand each other” or speak “the same language” (69). Edna confesses her true nature, saying that even for her own children she won’t put herself second. In fact, it is this very declaration of hers that comes into her mind when she decides to end her life. Her transgression from the expectations of others is not merely a rebellion for the sake of rebellion, it stems from the very heart of her inner nature. In her abandonment of her own children, she reveals a disposition opposed to the most basic expectation about female instinct. Regarding her connections with others, she sees relationships as shackles and obstacles to freedom. Her conflict is deeper than a rejection of standards – it is a personal suffocation. All of the evidence to this effect is summed up when the narrator shares Edna’s mind with us after a visit with Riesz. Edna “resolved never again to belong to another than herself” (103).
Although Chopin illustrates that her main character is naturally predisposed to reach a social conflict, the author also makes it clear that at the time of the story, the awakening described by the title of the novel is an event in and of itself. Edna reveals the metaphor in the novel’s title, telling Robert, “It was you who awoke me last summer out of a life-long, stupid dream” (132). That summer she begins to look upon her own body “as if it were something she saw for the first time” (58). The other characters serve as representations which pronounce differences in Edna’s mentality and at the same time offer potential roles in society that she might emulate, as she approaches the critical epiphany that must inevitably resolve her conflict. We become convinced that her being awake reveals to her a denial of self which can not be ignored, but it cannot be tolerated, either.
Edna recalls the seeds of her awakening in her youth. She then reveals that her desire to flee convention has matured along with her, by sustaining Chopin’s symbolism; a unity between the ocean Edna tests in adulthood and “the stretch of green” of the “big field” she runs through in childhood: “…I feel this summer as if I were walking through the green meadow again; idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided” (38). | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | In fact, the figure we call “Jesus” actually had a name during his own life that was pronounced “Yeshua.” Even the changing of his name became established and passed on.
Much of the conflict within Christianity in the following centuries centered around the authority of the church institution and the pope, and the religion ultimately fragmented, opening the doors for further additions of beliefs. In 1054 C.E., “The Great Schism” formally split Western and Eastern European Christendom into Catholicism in the West and Eastern Orthodox in the East. In the 1500s, Luther, Calvin, and Henry VIII led Protestant movements which split away from Catholicism. The Protestant movement divided into many factions, with Calvinist groups coming to the United States (Although Catholicism reached America first). Entirely new denominations were formed in America in the 1800s. Finally, in the United States the Christian belief system was added onto again. John Nelson Darby of the Plymouth Brethren Puritan group introduced Millenial Dispensationalist thinking and rapture theology, which became viewed as truth by some of the new American denominations. The New Testament book Revelation, written in 96 C.E. by John of Patmos, was a symbolic message to the believers in those times for spiritually facing Roman oppression. Rapture theology ignored the writer’s intent in this apocalyptic literature, lifting it out of context to support a new belief system about a coming end of the world when certain people will be selected to be transported to a heavenly realm, leaving the rest behind for war and violence, followed by a millennium of peace. The historical contexts of writings in the books of Isaiah and Daniel are also disregarded for the use of these texts in supporting the theology. Many American congregations today teach in depth these beliefs. Chapter 13 in the gospel of Mark and Chapter 24 in the gospel of Matthew seem to support rapture theology, but that would be a strictly literal reading. The future Christian trend, for groups who do not do so yet, will be to move more and more toward acceptance that Jesus’ method of teaching was utterly dominated by parables, metaphor, and generally a creative sense of illustrating his points. We were not meant to remove our eyeballs and cut off our hands as he says a couple of times in Matthew: Should Christians be dismembering themselves around the world? Obviously, no. Even if it seems futile trying to interpret his words, they were nonetheless not literal much of the time.
Contextual consideration also reveals that there is no definitive evidence for Jesus’ having taught that people have souls to be literally either sent to heaven or condemned to hell. During the times of Jesus’ life, Greek thought posed an eternal soul which lives apart from the body, and the Persian Zoroastrian religion introduced the notions of both heaven and hell. “It was Paul and his successors who developed the idea of a literal hell as the destiny of the unrighteous…” (Laughlin 166). | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | This seems to verify the symbolism in Edna’s acts of visiting resorts, and the tropical oceanic environment of the Gulf Coast seems to be the catalyst of her awakening. She figuratively likens herself to a bound vessel freed to “drift” the ocean (56). (I assume the narrator is relating Edna’s metaphor).
Adelle is a character who demonstrates society’s expectations for Edna. Unlike Riesz, Adelle represents the Edna that could be should she be able to embrace convention. The narrator echoes Mr. Pontellier’s feeling that Edna is “not a mother-woman” (29). We assume this pre-dates her awakening. “They were women who idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and…one of them was the embodiment of every womanly grace and charm…Her name was Adelle Ratignolle” (29). The narrator makes a point to differentiate her from Riesz in physical appearance. While Riesz is “homely” (84), Ratignolle has “spun-gold hair,” eyes “like…sapphires,” and lips like “cherries.” Her “beauty” is “flaming” (29). She is consumed by domestic pursuits, as “she sewed away on the little night-drawers or fashioned a bodice or a bib” (29). Chopin connects womanly self-esteem and popularity to the mother and wife role dictated by culture, by creating a difference between the supposedly undesirable pianist and the domestic “fair lady of our dreams” (29). Meanwhile, Edna does not see the point in spending her time “making…night garments” (30).
Adelle’s marriage, as well as Edna’s reaction to witnessing it, is an important revelation about the ideal vision of a woman who would ultimately find happiness and purpose as a wife. Chopin’s description of the Ratignolles during Edna’s visit states: “If ever the fusion of two human beings into one has been accomplished on this sphere it was surely in their union” (78). With a perfect dinner and Adelle’s support of her husband’s every word, a sharp contrast to Edna’s own marriage is pronounced by the narrator. We are told that Edna is repulsed by this scene, and the idea of living such a life. In fact, she is disgusted by traditional wife and mother constructions of duty and identity. By the time we see the Ratignolles, it has become clear that Edna will not be able to find peace in a domestic future. Edna’s marriage is an attempt to “take her place with a certain dignity in the world of reality” (40).
There is a hint, in the husband’s constructed assessment of the wife’s mental state, of the consequences of individuality. The group ideology defines existence for its subjects, the group is patriarchal, and someone who questions the role defined for them may be punished if they stay among the group. If she were willing to leverage sex as a negotiating tool with him, she might assume the identity of someone who manipulates the powers-that-be for personal freedom. But she doesn’t seem willing to prostitute herself. | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | The figure we now call Jesus gathered a following of Jews, who would later call themselves followers of “The Way.” From 30 – 50 C.E., the twenty years following the execution of Jesus by the Romans for sedition, there formed a new sect within the synagogue of Jews, the Nazarenes. The Nazarenes accepted non-Jews into their group, grew in numbers, and around 100 C.E. in the city of Antioch, Syria, they for the first time no longer identified themselves as a Jewish group, but instead were Christians.
A belief system originating with Jesus was not simply preserved and carried forward through time. Instead, new belief systems were created and attached to Christianity. We have reports in the four gospels of things Jesus said and things he did. While contradictions may be found between these texts and while their historical accuracy may be debated, we might still posit an original Christianity with the reported words and actions of Jesus, which built upon a Judaic foundation. After the lifetime of Jesus, Paul introduced a new interpretation of ultimate truth, not espoused by Jesus himself. Paul, instead of exploring Jesus’ actions or teachings, embarked on his own way of thinking, which was written down by him or in his name and included with the later written gospels for canonization as The New Testament. Paul’s assertions about Jesus’ identity, the purpose of his death and its implications for humankind, achieved the authoritative status of scripture. “Jesus’ focal reign of God theme and the parables and miracles that symbolized it simply disappear in the teachings of Paul” (Laughlin 121). Even the gospels, and especially the book of John, couch the narratives within the beliefs of the authors. St. Augustine of Hippo, (354-430 C.E.) building on Paul’s ideas, composed theological formulations about the inescapable sinful state of humankind and the non-existence of righteous intent. These beliefs were permanently incorporated into Western Christianity and were not Hebrew scripture or Jesus’ message. We might look back through history at just this early stage of the religion and wonder if it is more accurate to see that first was Jesus’ message, then came Paul’s religion, then came the gospel authors’ views, and then came Augustine’s religion. We might go as far as to say that “Paulism” and “Augustinism” are still alive today, are still widely believed to be simply “Christianity,” (except regarding the Eastern Orthodox tradition) and are still not the actual teachings of Jesus or the scripture he pointed to. This is not an absolute distinction—a few selections from Paul’s writings will certainly be congruous with the themes of Jesus’ words--but a large part is not the original message at all. This all becomes particularly clear if we focus more on the synoptic gospels, as the book of John is so different than the other three. Today’s Christian doctrine takes for granted many additions of ideas that have survived until now. | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | Paul also laid the groundwork for a doctrine further developed and spread by John Calvin in the sixteenth century: Predestination. This thinking also survives widely today, and holds that everyone is born with no choice about where they are headed in an afterlife—that the elect have been selected for heaven and others have been designated for hell. In contrast, Jesus’ message in the synoptic gospels was about a kingdom of heaven accessible to all, which is the bringing about of a reality on Earth. The divergence from his teaching in early Christianity that was developed through the ages created redemption for a next life instead, an eternal one.
Jesus taught about how we should approach life concerning our time on Earth. After Paul, Augustine, Calvin and Darby, much of Christianity taught that we are incapable of being righteous, that the death of Jesus was the cure for this, that some are condemned no matter what, that the quality of an afterlife would reflect our worth, and even that the world is coming to an end any time now. The great reversal coming in the future of Christianity will be a great reduction from these doctrines. New pillars of belief will dominate the religion, formed of only those themes that can be extrapolated from Jesus’ words. What had been central to Catholics and Protestants will be seen as outgrown—a part of Christian history, much in the same way African-American slavery is no longer accepted in the United States. Christians will “shift their attention from Jesus’ death to his life and teachings, from the assertion that ‘Christ died for our sins’ to the view that ‘Jesus lived and taught so as to guide us to a godly life’” (Laughlin 197-198).
Many Christians today talk about sin in a way that alludes to unethical or immoral conduct or decisions, so that popular ideas may already take liberties in thought, but traditional indoctrination is what will be altered in the future. Paul, who never met Jesus, wrote that sin entered the world through Adam and became the condition of all humanity for all time. Augustine further developed Paul’s platform, coined the term “Original Sin,” and insisted that the only choice people can make is to do one kind of evil or another. Paul had explained that good works by people are useless as well. This doctrine was challenged at various times through the ages (such as by Pelagius) but still endured as the accepted truth. In the future, however, these ideas will finally be let go. How is that possible if they are contained in the Bible? It is not so far-fetched. There are today many viewpoints expressed in both the Old Testament and the New Testament which are not promoted and which are sometimes downright ignored. For example, Jesus himself makes statements in at least both Mark and Luke that seem to assert that being financially prosperous is a serious barrier to being righteous. | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | The separation between Edna and her husband and therein between Edna and popular convention as well, is represented by her moving into her own house, but the most symbolic act of her rejection of the status quo occurs after dinner one night. Edna throws her wedding ring to the floor and earnestly tries to crush it underfoot. As she is unable to, we might take the point that she is not strong enough to abandon her marriage or convention, for that matter. In fact, she puts the undamaged ring back onto her finger. The doctor’s character seems to parallel the husband’s in denying the validity of female individualism. He, after hearing about Edna from the husband’s point of view, offers his patriarchal analysis for the causes of deviant female behavior. “[W]ith a smile,” insinuating ridicule, he theorizes that she might be “associating” with “a circle of pseudo-intellectual women – super-spiritual superior beings…” It might even be a genetically inherited defect. Finally, the doctor’s solution is to have “her stay among her own people.” She would hopefully behave and think as “her own people” do (Chopin 88). The doctor concludes that if all else fails, one must consider the nature of women as mood-based persons. Double standards are characteristic of patriarchy. Only men were permitted to lust for lust’s sake. When Edna allows Arobin to have her, she compounds her failure at motherhood with a failure at womanhood, in the eyes of the society that conditioned her. The character of Robert serves to illustrate, as he ultimately abandons her, that she is not able to find any life partner to join with her in a union which flouts convention. Regarding her inner sense of identity, we are privy to Edna’s reaction to a woman even more “unfamiliar” than Riesz. Edna “looked at [Mariequita’s] feet, and noticed the sand and slime between her brown toes” (55). This image nicely conveys the view of the girl as savage and wild. Because Edna’s response to the girl’s “broad and coarse” sandal-clad feet is that she “liked it all” (55), we gain insight into her burgeoning psychic transformation. The girl also becomes an example of female nakedness and connection to the earth, which we are learning at this point in the story, must excite and intrigue Edna. She becomes obsessed one night with a taboo book that is passed around a group of her peers. The extent of their novelty with the item is to discuss it with each other, but Edna sneaks it away to her room where she secretly uses it, making sure nobody can discover what she’s doing. Overall, her island visit makes her feel ”as if she were being borne away from some anchorage which had held her fast, whose chains had been loosening – had snapped the night before…leaving her free” (56). | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | There are a great many examples throughout the Bible, but the bottom line is that Christianity has never had a problem with downplaying ideas even though they exist in scripture. In fact, the books called Maccabees are a part of Catholic bibles but don’t exist in Protestant ones. Also, the book Song of Songs is a part of the Bible, but it is definitely not championed in Christian teaching. The great reduction of future Christianity might go as far as to circulate and use abridged New Testaments. There is already a popular printing that has everything Jesus said in red letters with everything else in black letters. And, many of us have been handed small pocket New Testaments that come with the books of Psalms and Proverbs—but where did the rest of the Old Testament go? Receiving one of these Bibles is like being taught that the only necessary parts of the Old Testament are Psalms and Proverbs. It will be conceivable to find, in the future, usage of a New Testament that has been reduced to only the four gospels and selected excerpts from the other books.
In the future, Christianity will show a desire to purge the contradictions between much of established teaching, and Jesus’ teachings. This movement will also seek to eliminate contradictions between theologies created in history and added into Christianity from simply Jesus’ own belief system. Even though this great reduction in beliefs will include the decentralization of Jesus’ body dying as crucial to humanity, as he himself never taught principles surrounding that event, there is one important aspect of Jesus that will not be touched in the future. His nature, whether only divine, only human, or both divine and human, will be left to the individual believer. Even the Council of Chalcedon (451 C.E.) that made official his nature as 100 % divine and 100 % human left some minds something to struggle with. There are no definitive declarations by Jesus himself establishing who or what he was. He may very well have been confessing to be divine, but then again he may never have confessed it. In the synoptic gospels he is elusive about it. Arguments can be made regarding some of his statements in the book of John, but even he himself explained (such as in Mark) that he spoke frequently in symbolic, not literal terms, so that we can’t ascribe definitive literal meaning to those statements. The various parables are a classic example of his method of speaking figuratively.
In fact, a metaphorical understanding of Jesus’ words throughout the gospels will be part of the approach that future Christianity will use in promoting the original doctrine above the Paul-Augustine model and above the additions of Calvin, Darby and others. It is an awareness that Jesus’ new message, as well as his interpretation of the Judaic tradition of his own lifetime, is a separate religion from what developed in Christianity later, that will finally compel Christians of the future to return to the source. | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | Both works of literature contain representations of identity that the protagonists explore, respectively, through conflict.
Mademoiselle Riesz represents a working rejection of convention, a portrait of the Edna that could be should she defy the role of devoted mother and wife which is expected of her. Part of this defiance would be non-compliance with the whims of men. As Edna begins to awaken, she fancies the notion that she is “becoming an artist” (Chopin 86). This draws her to Riesz, who doubts Edna’s fortitude for such a life, prophetically pointing out that “…to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul…the soul that dares and defies” (86). Riesz refers in large part to a far more patriarchal culture, which we know prevailed historically in the place and period of Edna’s world. Have you ever wondered about the origin of the commonly used expression “rule of thumb”? During the period of this story, English law, a contributor to the culture of early America, held that a husband was permitted to beat his wife for any reason with a rod no wider than his thumb. Furthermore, such “reasons” might have been as trivial as dinner being ten minutes late on the table. Careers were reserved for men, while women were expected to stay home raising children and tending house. Even those women wealthy enough to hire servants to perform these duties, such as Edna, were nonetheless expected to center their activities around their house, husbands and children. If nothing else, wives were expected to grant sex on demand and exist more as the husband’s legal property than an independent force. In fact, Edna’s husband, feeling a loss of control, defines Edna’s non-compliance as an illness, such as Arobin’s assessment of “demented” (106), thus seeking the services of a doctor. Her husband tells the doctor, “She lets housekeeping go to the dickens.” He further complains that he is being denied sex. He is troubled by her “tramping about by herself” (88). It seems Chopin reveals much about the expectations of others through the voice of Edna’s husband – so much so, that I wonder whether his character might allegorically represent the establishment and its view of marriage. He reacts poorly when Edna admits she has been going out of the house with no particular explanation each time. Instead of voicing some concern about her having extramarital relations, however, his alarm revolves around convention; “people don’t do such things” (73). A healthy spousal desire might be to feel assured of a partner’s fidelity, or even of a partner’s well-being, but he consistently exhibits a motivation to preserve an illusion. He makes it clear that his entire reaction to Edna’s getting her own house is focused on creating an acceptable excuse for their community. He “begged her to consider first, foremost, and above all else, what people would say” (116). He never seems to care for Edna’s motivations. | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | It is fair to mention that Eastern Orthodox Christianity did break away from Catholicism and therefore Protestantism as well, as early as 1054 C.E., officially. One of the dividing issues was Eastern Christianity’s emphasis on personal deification in contrast to Western Christianity’s emphasis on atonement and salvation. This was an early step in the direction the Christianity of our future will take, and so, in some ways the Eastern Orthodox tradition will be similar to it, but it will still be too mystically oriented to catch on in the mainstream. Regarding Western orthodoxy, the goal of life espoused by Jesus wasn’t to make it into a rewarding heaven or a punishing hell in an afterlife, but to be righteous so that this world would become heaven, demonstrative of God’s will for us. The message wasn’t that we are unavoidably sinners at birth, or that some humans had been pre-selected for damnation, or anything John Nelson Darby claimed. Instead, Jesus taught that we do in fact have the ability to question ourselves, to attempt to improve ourselves, and to find salvation in this lifetime, building a kingdom of God on this Earth for this age. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus declared, “Blessed are the pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8, New International Version). In this speech, alluding to exceptional character, Jesus similarly advised, “Be perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Jesus’ statements are directly contradicted by Paul, Augustine, and Calvin who explained that no person is “pure in heart” and there is nothing one can do towards being “perfect.” Jesus used metaphor to teach that we do actively purge ourselves of, or at least avoid, sin. In the Sermon on the Mount, he said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away…And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away” (Matthew 5:29-30). When he said “…great is your reward in heaven…” (Matthew 5:12) he wasn’t talking about an afterlife. He was figuratively teaching that embracing God’s will causes God to look upon one favorably in this life. Jesus stated, “He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matthew 22:32).
Between Paul and Augustine, acts of righteousness are either ineffective or not possible for humans at all. How can this be, if Jesus in his Sermon spoke metaphorically about a “lamp” when “it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men…” (Matthew 5:15-16)? Furthermore, Jesus stated, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness…” (Matthew 5:10). The namesake of this religion seemed to urge us to see ourselves as coming into the world with the potential to exist within God’s will for us or to not, depending on our willingness. Jesus placed no limitation on humanity, no automatic cursedness. | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | He did say that to become righteous could be difficult (such as for the rich), and that some would not succeed at it, but not that it is completely out of our hands.
Undoubtedly, there were already Christians in history, just as there are some considered “liberal” today, who argued for and currently contend for a shift away from the doctrines that came after Jesus, readings of scripture that are stubbornly literal, and interpretations of scripture which ignore historical context. The future doesn’t hold a removal of faith, devotion, or awe for Christianity. Critical scrutiny and empiricism won’t replace the Christ of faith for believers. Religion won’t be taken out of religion. Rather, the material in the four gospels and the Hebrew scripture to which it may point will be seen as incongruous with long-standing dogma, and will be exclusively utilized to perpetuate the faith, on a widespread and unprecedented scale. The dissemination of ideas won’t be traceable to anything other than Jesus, a Christ of faith, or texts he would have upheld, and there will be a consistent diligence about the possible need to glean meaning from symbolism. Some will always believe that God came to us in the form of a human, and others will always believe that a human came to inform us about God, but Christians of the future won’t be interested in dividing over this. Instead, they will be interested in uniting in the quest to interpret and to embody his words. Is the great reduction in Christian beliefs coming in future eras too simplistic? Jesus said, “`Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:37-39).
“The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.’” In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, Edna’s sad destiny is foretold by these symbolic words (Chopin 106). Unable to accept the traditional role expected of her, she ultimately commits suicide. Edna’s awakening is her coming to awareness of the possibilities beyond the illusions of society and culture. “Above all, there was understanding. She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life” (106). Chopin makes it clear, however, that Edna has been since childhood predisposed for such a conflict, long before her awakening. But at the time of the story, this conflict reaches maturity. The people in her life seem to reveal, through the author’s rich symbolic tapestry, societal constructions of identity, pointing both to convention and that which flouts convention. Mademoiselle Riesz, for example, feels Edna’s back to see if her “wings” are “strong” (106). | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
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The teachings of Jesus and the beliefs he held during his lifetime were immediately left behind in the development of Christian thought that moved forward after his life. If we look at this history in broad strokes, we see a trend of Christianity straying farther and farther from its origin. It seems that today’s world shows an ever-growing awareness and an unprecedented progressive tendency. While traditional people remain and will resist any kind of thinking beyond what was taught to them, this portion of the population may not be prominent enough to influence the whole. Among Christians, a historical awareness will grow immensely in future years. A yearning will spread, to distinguish the doctrines that were added into Christianity over time from the actual intent of the religion’s namesake. It may take decades or even centuries, but the outcome will be inevitable: There will be a great reversal in the trend of Christian history. There will be a progression back to its original form. A movement will grow in numbers that will remove layers of doctrine, one after the other, just as if the clock started moving backward, until nothing is left except a conception of what Jesus introduced to humanity on behalf of God, before any other thinkers made such claims. When this trend sweeps through the United States and Europe, influencing masses in its wake to worship as if we were living at the time of Jesus, following only his ideas, the church as an institution will remain strong to lead the way. However, because the theological clock will have moved backward, the extreme proliferation of diversity in Christendom will reverse into more and more uniformity of belief and practice. Between regions, between denominations, between divisions of every kind, we will see instead of differences, increasing similarities. Human history is filled with great reversions. Just one example is how Christians were at one time persecuted, shunned and killed by the Roman Empire. But later that empire became a Christian institution. Our country has gone from African-American slavery to African-American leadership. The great reversion coming in our future will play itself out in the arena of the Christian religion, undoing history in search of the source, and undoing diversity in the process. It is crucial to note that part of what will make this process possible will be a method of reading Jesus’ words as metaphorical, and not as literal statements. So what is it that happened since Jesus’ lifetime?
If we look far enough back into history, we find only Judaism, the theological beginning for the Christian religion. Monotheism, the perception of a divinely revealed religion, and the authority of the Hebrew scriptures, were all at the core of the religion by the time the Romans assumed control of Jerusalem in 63 B.C.E. The Jewish population did not share one spirit. They divided into Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots and a majority of common people. | 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
ff | He readily buys into the state of mind that scouts are physical go-getters, men who can survive in any element. These are people who master life, and are esteemed by others (this means girls, too). The manual equates scout attitude with prosperity, specifically American-style prosperity. Although much of adolescence is universally understood by readers of he novel, I am inclined to make all of these conclusions because of Wolff’s portrayal of Toby the boy. “I liked reading all these advertisements” (Wolff 103). The most important thing to Toby about a Boy Scout identity is not, however, what he gleans from the literature, it is the uniform and its potential for donning badges. “I liked being a Scout…[m]y uniform…made me feel like a soldier” (102). He admits that his entire focus is how to get badges, and they could almost put any explanation behind the system as far as he is concerned. He is aware that society’s eyes immediately translate a uniform into identity for the wearer. He is further aware of which visuals confer which type of status. He certainly needs to escape Dwight, however, in order to realistically become himself or any one for that matter. Dwight undermines his attempt to be well outfitted for the Scouts. In two other cases as well, a uniform represents an identity Toby desires, and in both other cases Dwight also undermines Toby’s ability to join a group. Toby could care less about the appearance of dress shoes in a gymnasium, but Dwight’s deliberate effort to deny the boy adequate footwear for the basketball team destroys his ability to play the game. He has talent. He could have been the next basketball star and have enjoyed exactly the kind of social position he sought. When he works brilliantly to assume another social position, ivy-league prep-school student, Dwight throws away crucial documents for the process, and attempts to psychologically manipulate the boy. Once again, the uniform is the nucleus of the identity, as Wolff represents to the reader by recounting testimony of Toby’s ally, the college scout, and by revealing a glimpse of superficial, elitist behavior at the school. He is unable to hold on to his school uniform (the expensive wardrobe) because he is unable to complete school at that time. But we know he was finally granted a uniform in the U.S. military. He finally got his gun as well, which is another item that carries associations about role. More importantly, getting his own gun despite Dwight’s interference, as he does even in the novel, is being true to himself while illustrating his need to flee his stepfather for the purposes of self-actualization. From the novel’s beginning, we see that Toby sought identity in the notion of assuming the name “Jack.” Jack has a commanding, masculine sound to the American ear.
| 41 | English | male | Bachelor Arts | Tutor | N,N,N,N,N |
tt | When Pentecostalism struck the movement came in two waves: Pentecostalism and Neo-Pentecostalism (New Pentecostalism). Each had its own leaders and founders to establish it as a new movement.
Wesley wrote A Plain Account of Christian Perfection and it is eleven observances on the doctrine of second definite work of Grace, which was the founding doctrine of the Pentecostal movement.
Wesley never addressed this as the infilling of the Holy Spirit and fire. One of his colleagues Charles Finney was the first to equate the Holy Spirit with the Second Definite work of grace. Charles was a former Presbyterian and the first professional evangelist in America.
So now that there was talk of the Holy Spirit and such things this set the stage. Around this time was the tragedy of the Irish potato famine, and many people were migrating to the United States. Many people were waiting expecting the next great move of God, they wanted something.
It is debated where speaking in tongues sprang up at. Some think that it came up in Topeka, Kansas when Agnes Ozman, under the tutelage of Charles Parham. Others equate the beginning of the movement with its outbreak on 312 Azusa street in California.
It is recorded that Agnes Ozman started speaking Chinese and was unable to speak English for three days. Soon after revivals sprang out as the message of Charles Parham was spread by William Seymour. Eventually the movement made its way to California where it was made famous by the Azusa Street revival.
Others believe that the movement began at Azusa Street. William Joseph Seymour was the man who headed up the movement at Azusa Street. Some of the on lookers describe the movement as beautiful and were astounded that there was no color line in the congregations.
Seymour was a black Baptist preacher who joined the holiness movement when he attended Parham’s seminar and was filled with the Holy Spirit. He then began to travel spreading the message of the second definite work. Seymour had left an impression with Mrs.
After the outbreak in Azusa everyone began spreading the gift of the Holy Spirit. Most of the movement is not recorded past this just because people would show up at small churches and tell them about the gift. The people would say that the individual bringing the gift was almost glowing, and that he seemed too happy to be there. The theology of the movement was mainly based on four things: healing, Baptism of the Holy Spirit, tongues, and the Second coming of Christ. Most of the movement remained underground until certain figures came to the forefront with a “new” Pentecostalism. This movement sprang up at about the time of the Great Depression. “By 1940 the camp meetings were focused on the moment of miracle.” The main icons of the Neo-Pentecostal movement were William Branham, Oral Roberts, and Gordon Lindsay. This newer Pentecostalism had a stronger emphasis on Miraculous manifestations. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | She is the only character with the insight to see the future and the ability to change it. The south could only be saved if it were to accept both African Americans and women. Dilsey is the unification of the south, African Americans, and women. Dilsey is the only choice for a savior in the novel.
Dilsey is the only future that exists for the south. Neither Quentin, Jason nor Benjy can cope with the changes that are happening: In the case of Jason he ignores the fact that everything is changing; Benjy cannot comprehend future or change; Quentin goes so far to reject the changes that are happening he ends his life.
Time for Faulkner functions in two ways, the first way in which it functions is the manner in which the narrator perceives time. The mental stability of the narrator is crucial in this function of time. As the characters lose touch with reality they display this more with their lack of the concept of time. Benjy pretty much lives in a different reality but with Quentin we get to see the actual digression of his character. As he falls deeper and deeper into despair, grasping for any possible reality but the one he is living, time begins swirling around him like a whirlpool that he cannot escape. Each of these aliments skews the way in which each of the brothers views time past, time present, and prevents them from seeing time future.
Dilsey is the only answer, the only way to bring everyone out of despair. She is the suffering servant, the one consistent good in the novel. She is the only character that can see what time it is. Dilsey can see through her past, through her present situation, and embrace the future that is coming. Dilsey views time correctly and communicates the best out of all of the narratives. As a result of that service, Dilsey says the one thing that summarizes the reason that she is a redemptive character. She survives because she can see both the past and the future while she lives in the present. She is not bound by the same time that the Compson brothers captive.
Poe is one of the most famous American authors. His work, however, was not appreciated in his time like it is now. His composition technique with short stories still affects the way in which stories are written today. Currently our most popular form of storytelling is cinema. If Poe were alive today his forward thinking and interest in scientific advancement would almost assure that he would be involved in cinema. Cinema may not be perfect yet but it is the next transformation in how stories are told. Through cinema all of the tales of the past and present have and will be reborn, for better or worse.
The interesting thing about cinema is that even though it is the new wave, it has taken on many of the characteristics of the past. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
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Dream-land is one of Edgar Allan Poe’s self-proclaimed better poems. In “Dream-Land” Poe uses the term “Thulé” in lines 6 and 56 which Mabbott traces back to Virgil. Virgil used the term in reference to an island north of Britain which the Greeks considered the edge of the known world. It is certain that Virgil did use the term however there is a more current source to which some credit must be given. Poe was very interested in German authors.
This quote is important because it shows Poe’s familiarity with Gothe’s writing. Karl J. Arndt, in his book Poe’s Politian and Goethe’s Mignon, comments on the similarity of their two poems drawing the conclusion that Poe was imitating Goethe.
Oxford Companion to English Literature says of Gothe was a celebrated writer of the poetic drama Faust which was published in two parts the first in 1808 and the second in the year of Gothe’s death 1832. Within the poetic verse of Faust’s second part lies a short poem titled “The King of Thulé”. The poem is about a king whose wife dies after she gives him the gift of a goblet. After his wife passes he begins drinking heavily and crying from the memory of his dead queen. He then decides it is his time to die and gives his possessions to his children save for the goblet. He then walks to a cliff, throws the goblet into the ocean, closes his eyes, and dies. The demeanor of the King of Thule and the description of the king in Dream-Land are very similar, maybe a dark doppelganger of Poe’s loss and crutch of drinking. Faust was also composed into a romantic drama by H P Grattan in 1842, which was less than one year prior to Poe’s use of the term Thule in “The Pit and the Pendulum”.
Poe references Thule twice in his collected writings. Once Poe references “ultma Thule” in The Pit and the Pendulum but he uses this phrase in “Dream-Land” twice, as book ends for the poem. “The King of Thule” and “Dream-Land” can be read as companion pieces. In “Dream-Land” the speaker says. He then describes the landscape of Thule and how it is dark, lonely, he is haunted by dead friends, and he sees a shaded world without color. All of these scenes would be read into “The King of Thule” by Gothe as he has just lost his wife, he is lonely, and he has lost his will to rule or even live. The entire poem is a description as though the speaker has stepped into Goethe’s poem.
Gothe was a significant author who Poe would have known if for no other reason then his respect for Tennyson. Poe had this to say when asked if he admired Tennyson. Aside from the connection to Tennyson Poe would have been exposed to Gothe’s work in the many reproductions that were taking place after the original publication. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | The effect of Faulkner’s form is that of a Rubik’s Cube, there are many different sides of the novel that line up based upon how you manipulate the story. Time and Memory are the two central pieces that drive every other theme in the story.
The best way to dissect the methodology of the form is to separate the opposites and watch how the novel clashes with itself. Benjy, as I have already stated, has a perspective of innocence. He is a camera lens, recording and playing back the world as he views a fragmented reality. Jason is the polarizing opposite of Benjy. Jason has no disability other than his mind numbing need for power and control. He cripples himself with his attitude toward life. Benjy cannot see a future, he is unalterably locked within the present while continually cycling through the past.
While Benjy is innocent and has no ill will toward anyone, those exact characteristics summarize Jason’s existence. Jason tries to manipulate everyone for his benefit; even Caddy’s wedding was a way for Jason to “get ahead”. When Caddy’s marriage falls through he blames her for all of his hardship and when he can no longer punish her he punishes her daughter. Jason is the beloved son of Caroline Compson. This actually is one of the causes of his downfall because Jason becomes as self-absorbed as Mrs. Compson herself.
Benjy cannot help himself, he is tragically handicapped and other than Caddy no one even tries to understand him. There are two form in which people communicate with Benjy, either to make fun of him or to calm him down when crying. Only Caddy attempts to go farther than simply trying to satisfy their own comfort. Caddy actually attempts to communicate with Benjy and appease him on some level. While Benjy cannot change his innocent Jason chooses to be ignorant. Jason chooses to blame everyone else for his problems rather than taking some responsibility for himself. Jason’s perspective is isolated within the past as well. While Benjy relives each of his memories as though they were current Jason tries to appear as innocent as Benjy. Jason believes that he embodies the greatness of the Compson name and his downfalls are a result of the lesser people surrounding him.
The effects of thought processes of these two men drastically influence their perception of time. Benjy flows between past and present as a result of his condition. Jason attempts to use his past to explain his lack of success. Benjy’s ideal future would be to renew the bonds of his childhood while Jason’s would be to free himself of those bonds. The best description of the pity that we should have for Benjy and the same pity that Jason desires is communicated well by Maria Tataryn.
The other two characters that contrast each other well are that of Dilsey and Quentin. Dilsey and Quentin are two characters separated by hope. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
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Poe was exposed to the works of Gothe and the similarity between Goethe’s “The King of Thule” and Poe’s “Dream-Land” should not be over looked. “The King of Thule” provides a wonderful back drop to “Dream-Land”.
Many of us have seen World War II films; some of us were alive to experience it. The bravery and fearless resolve to carry out commands makes each and every soldier a legend: Saving Private Ryan, Pearl Harbor, Hart’s War, Wind Talkers, Thin Red Line. Each movie has its own magnanimous hero and diabolical villain. Many times in my life have I played the part of the war hero, reenacting in my mind each graceful move: ducking fire, crawling through trenches, yelling for cover, carrying my comrades out of harm’s way when they were “hit”; I would mimic them precisely. I never lost, never even came close. I never knew who I was fighting; all I knew was that they were just the bad guys. No names, no families, no jobs, just bad guys. Who cares about the enemy? One must kill or be killed, an eye for an eye, hurt them before they hurt you. I am not an anti-war activist, and you are probably wondering when I am going to start speaking of church history. General history has much to do with Church history. How they have intertwined has shown how the church grows and forms. For instance, the Church has always thrived in the face of persecution. The Church has had its own world wars and lives were destroyed all the same. Many times we accept our heritage with all the nobility of the Queen of England, but we all have our black sheep. I do not say that the Pentecostal movement was a mistake, neither do I say that it is inerrant. I do say that you should not call yourself Pentecostal without knowing both the bad and good of what that means. Now our journey through the past begins, for if history truly repeats itself, you may see your future.
The movement has a birth that, for all intensive purposes, I wish only to trace back to its separation from the Roman Catholic Church. So now, let us say that it all began with Martin Luther. The church for many years had become a political playground, people with titles were marrying into the church for property and taxes, and the church would accept this for the authority it gave them. I have neither the time nor the ability to explain in its entirety why the Church completely rejected Martin Luther, even though he was trying to suck the poison from the body. Is it not funny that the ones we hurt the most are the ones that love us the most? So the Church excommunicated Martin Luther after he nailed his 95 thesis to the Church door. Martin Luther decided to debate the Church councils; however, this came to no avail. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | Martin Luther eventually decided to separate from the church in the early 1600’s and start his own sect of religion. It is not my place to decide if he did the right thing based on his circumstances, but I cannot say that I would have done differently. What I can and must say is that this was the beginning of the innumerable church splits and congregational divides. It is only in the Church’s best interest that Martin Luther acted and as that it will be interpreted. I do feel that individuals have taken this desperate act far too lightly; they have left no room for reconciliation. The theological ramifications of the church divide were exponential. Luther’s main conflicts with the Church were
This would prove to be the mould for anybody and everybody who would have a conflict within a church. Today we have over a thousand denominations. This issue, as you will find out later, is one of the main things that Pentecostals would fight against. Some of the main denominations that were progressively formed were: Eastern Orthodox, Anti-Baptist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregational, American Baptist, Methodist, Campbellite, Mormon, Seven-Day Adventist, Christian Science, Apostolic, Church of Christ, and Assemblies of God. These churches were formed over many years but not necessarily through great pain and suffering. These churches, in several cases, did not confront their church at all they simply left. The difference between Martin Luther and everyone else is that Martin did not want to leave his church, he struggled hard to resolve the conflicts yet the church would not budge. Knowing full well, with much biblical conformation and through Christian relationships, that he was correct the church forced his hand. Many of these new denominations are sparked by anything from a “new revelation” of what God is doing, to God revisiting the earth in some form to describe his “new” plan. As if God would come down and say, “Oh, sorry about that one guys. How about a plan B?” Can one denomination say that they are positive that God is working through their denomination, or more specifically their church? Each denomination seems to have its own extreme theology. Not one denomination I have studied so far has had totally sound doctrine. Can’t we just say that we are Christians and take the good with the bad? Just say, “So you believe in the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues, I believe in the manifestation of dancing.” The only things you need worry over are the things that deny God his characteristics, if God is God then let us interact with him any way we can.
Now let us progress to the Pentecostal movement. After Luther‘s decision to separate from the church everyone wanted to separate from their churches as well. As time progressed and denominations split eventually we arrived at Methodism. John Wesley was one of the great theologians of this movement and established the early foundations of the Pentecostal movement. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | He invested so much of himself within the ideology that it was easier for him to take his own life than to progress past the idea.
The individual flow of time is an important note on each of the characters understanding of life. However Faulkner added another element of time to the story that changes and develops the story further. The titles of each section are dates which, aside from Quentin’s section, line up chronologically leading to Easter Sunday. Faulkner uses this form to drive home the ideas within each of the sections. Each of the days has significance to the progression of the alternate narrative.
Jason’s date is Good Friday. Accordingly it is the section which displays the most manipulation and malice. This is the day in which Jesus would have been crucified, the day that the people cried to Pilot for blood. This imagery is perfect for Jason who wants to control everything and blame everyone else for his problems. The highest achievement for Jason is money because it gives him power and control.
It is Jason that embodies the darkest elements in the Compson family. This fits completely with the Easter motif for it was man’s darkest hour when they crucified Christ. Jason follows after his mother in that he is completely self-centered. He can only think of what people owe him and how much they hold him back. I cannot imagine a better character to embody the day of Christ’s death than Jason Compson, completely selfish and completely unaware.
It is Quentin who dies in this story, representing the symbolic southern man. Christ died to save the world but Quentin died because he could not save the south. Quentin could not save the image of the south in which he was born and he would not live without it. Christ gave his life to save and redeem mankind and Quentin took his life because he had neither faith nor hope in his family’s future. Christ died to give hope but Quentin died out of despair.
Benjy’s location in the march toward Easter is quite fitting. Benjy is the representation of the present impotent south. He is stuck in the cycle of the present and the past but he has no future. He continues living but he has no future, just a mixture of the present and the past.
Contained within the character of Benjy Compson is the understanding that the south, as it was, could not continue. Benjy’s narrative transitions, chronologically, into Dilsey’s. Dilsey is the representation of Easter and the resurrection. The difference in her narrative from the others is immediately recognizable. Dilsey is both black and a woman which are two things that southern mentality did not value highly. It is the combination of both of those things that set her up to be the savior of the Compson family name.
It was only through Dilsey that the south could be reborn. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | Poe, for one, is so commonly replicated in television shows that it is almost not worth mentioning. In his article His affect on cinema is one of the most interesting things to note. Entire movies have been constructed from themes and characters that he created. Some of the better movies have adapted ideas and characters from several of Poe’s works and combined them into single cinematic performances.
The movie Identity, directed by James Mangold and written by Michael Cooney, mimics several of the themes from many of Poe’s collective works. Recognition of Poe’s influence is not an indictment of Cooney but an endowment to Poe. When looking at the collective movie it may be hard to see just how much Poe influenced the story, but as we examine how Poe developed the themes it will be clearer to see how Cooney echoed them. Looking closely, Cooney replicated five major themes repeatedly within the script of Identity: dumb cops, wrongly suspected man, psychological instability, crime in a locked room, and the flash back finish.
Poe originally developed the theme of the dumb cops starting with his short story “The Purloined Letter”. In the short story the detective Dupin is approached by the police to solve a case for them. He solves the case and seems to do so with little effort while the police had exhausted their abilities with no effect. Cooney follows suit in the movie by making the police officer seem like a bumbling idiot: he looses the prisoner, contaminates the crime scene, and unsuccessfully flirts with the beautiful woman. Cooney imitates, almost perfectly, the stupid cop theme in the movie until we find out that he is not a cop, then his persona changes completely.
The wrongly suspected man is another of Poe’s more famous themes. He developed this theme in “Murders in the Rue Morgue” where Adolphe Le Bon, a friend of the main character, is wrongly accused of the grisly murders of two women. The friendship is what drove the main character, Dupin, to search out the answers and eventually solve the crime. Cooney adapts this theme to cinema by getting the audience to believe one of the characters guilty until the character is killed by the real murderer. Cooney adopted the theme that Poe originated to add suspense to his movie.
Psychological aspects were always important to Poe. He was very interested in phrenology. He was very interested to see how the human mind works and who we are as people. Poe was also interested in physiognomy, or the study of who a person is based upon their appearance although he recanted his belief in phrenology later in life. Cooney is also into the psychological aspects of humanity, as shown in his movie. Almost the entire movie takes place inside the mind of a person with multiple personalities, 10 to be exact. Some of the personalities within his mind are nice, well adjusted, members of society; the others are mean, self-serving, and often murderously hostile. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | They taught of the moment of miracle, financial healings, faith as a power, spiritual warfare, anti-intellectual, and involved with new revelations (which could not necessarily be proven). Branham was viewed to be the prophet of the Neo-Pentecostal generation. At the same time however he prophesied some things such as: By 1977 all denominations would be devoured by the World Council of Churches under the control of the Roman Catholics, and that the Rapture would occur followed by worldwide destruction. Another of his revelations was that he was Elijah, the end-time messenger of the last days. With this revelation he demanded that people leave their churches and pledge loyalty to him.
Looking at where my denomination has come from and what it is now has changed a lot of who I am. I do not think that being critical of it can advance my present state, but seeking to understand their choices can make my choices and actions easier. Just embracing it can do nothing good for anyone. Please do not think that what I am doing is out of hate; I only wish to examine the foundation of the house I was raised in.
At one time I was very troubled about prophecy, and I wanted to know how legitimate it was. It seemed like one of the easier things to manipulate, so it would be easy to control people when they thought that you could influence their destiny. I could not get inside the head of a prophet; nor did I believe that God would give me a straight forward answer. I decided that I should be the prophet and see how willing people were to listen to what I had to speak into their lives.
After doing this I proceeded to individuals that I was close to within the church and had them read my poem. After they had read it I would ask them to interpret the poem back to me, tell me in logical terms what it meant. They would always tell me something vague like darkness and light were fighting, so I knew that they were fighting with something. (Because when you interpret something formless you, in most cases, make it in your own image) So I would restate what they told me in vague terms and they would tell me specifics of their troubles. Everyone was so willing to receive that they did not care to recognize who or what was being given. All I provided them with was a psychological analysis with a practical solution and all of a sudden I am a great worker of God. Another example comes from a man named Dr. Mesmer. He believed that a man’s mind and body could be healed if their magnetic forces were realigned.
People genuinely believe false things all the time. My friend once told me a story of when they were visiting a church that was having a revival. It was a decent service not necessarily memorable until he gave an alter call. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | This text was written during the reign of the grandson of Owain son of Urien or also known as Owain Gwynedd. This would be the reason for the glorification of Owain over Arthur. This is the reason that Owain would be able to defeat Arthur, the great warrior king, in a game of strategy. It was not an insult to Arthur so much as recognition of the great lineage of Llywelyn. It would have been appropriate to use the historic figures of the legends to attach some honor to your name; just as Nennius did by saying that Britain was settled by Trojans who survived the wrath of Achilles. This was done throughout literary history. When someone who was relatively unknown wrote something special and wanted to invoke the authority of those who had written before him, they would simply add their name to his history.
The end of the story seems to give some strong implications that the story is a satire as well. The story was oral tradition handed down from generation to generation but the end of the book says otherwise. The end of the story should give a moral or exiting remark on the hero but it is only a note on the colors and clothes of the people in the story. It is not a commentary on the cynical nature of King Arthur. The Dream of Rhonabwy is a satire of the wars that the Welsh fought.
William Faulkner, in The Sound and the Fury, manipulates time in a way that has never been done before. He takes the collective conscious of each character and smashes it together in the present. Each of the four characters have unique connections between remembered time as it is influenced by their mental and emotional state.
Faulkner examines the mental state of the declining south and the effects of this decline on the perception of time. By examining the influence of time and memory in each of the characters the reader understand the meaning of time articulated by Faulkner. Benjy, Quentin, Jason and Dilsey each bring a new perspective as Faulkner plays with the ideas of time, memory and decline of the south.
Faulkner wrote each of these sections to be interpreted together. Each of the narrative styles and perspectives adds a new insight to the story and the interpretation of the waning nobility of the south. Each character is wrapped up in the emotions of their outlook on the situations involving their family. In the same manner each of these characters are enamored with the flow of time. Their emotional state deeply impacts their understanding of time and the manner in which they live their lives.
Benjy is the first narrator that we engage. He is mentally handicapped so the image he provides is one unadulterated by the intentions of someone with a hidden agenda such as Quentin and Jason. The way in which Benjy experiences time and memory sets the tone for the rest of the novel. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | Most critics hold to the time somewhere around early 1200s because of the naming of Owain and some of the other characters. This dating of the text would make The Dream of Rhonabwy the latest addition to be included in the finalized Mabanogion. This dating of the text would also put The Dream of Rhonabwy in the time when the Welsh were struggling to stay free of the English rule.
The historical Madawc was a Welsh prince who became a traitor when he allied with Henry II of England. His father Maredudd fought King Henry I each time Henry tried to invade Wales. Maredudd almost killed him when an arrow glanced off Henry I’s breastplate. Madawc allied with Henry II to invade Wales in 1158. These battles that Madawc and Henry II fought, historically, were against the same Owain from The Dream of Rhonabwy. These battles are what made Owain famous. Owain was recognized as one of the greatest rulers of the Welsh people, along with Arthur.
Once the dream begins the tale becomes more abstract and the action is harder to follow. Rhonabwy is met by a knight who claims to be Iddawc the son of Mynyo or better known as Iddawc the agitator. This character admits to being the person who inspired the battle of Caamlan in which Arthur was killed. The reader is expected to trust the person who could not be trusted to carry King Arthur’s message to Mordred. The reader is to follow Rhonabwy in submitting to a guide who admits that he is not trust worthy. King Arthur trusted Iddawc to carry a message for him and Arthur ended up dieing for his misjudgment. Iddawc then offers to lead Rhonabwy to the other heroes in the story, which seems like a bad decision. Rhonabwy seems to have no problem with this and just follows Iddawc around for the rest of the dream sequence. It seems odd that the author would choose a liar to communicate a large portion of his story, unless it is a satire of the Arthurian Age.
The descriptions of each knight that approaches begin with describing his hair, both color and style, then moves on to the color of his clothes and his horse. The Celts of this time would give special attention to the sword. The weapon of their nobility would have surely been the description along with the stature of the knight. Instead of giving a common greeting of physical prowess this author greets each of his characters by commenting of their fabulous sense of style.
The warriors were described by their clothes and scarves and the armies were given detailed descriptions by their banners. The author went so far as to brag about the brilliance of the soldier’s uniforms. For the eight pages of the text there is little action taking place, so much as description after description of the warrior’s hair and clothes. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | In all the description of the warriors there is no description of their armor, only the clothes and scarves.
Rhonabwy and his guide get to Baddon hill, the site of Arthur’s most famous battle. Arthur is sitting aside Bedwini the Bishop, who witnessed Arthur pull the sword from the stone. The only problem with them being on Baddon Hill is the presence of Iddawc the Agitator. Iddawc did not become the Agitator until the battle of Caamlan in which Arthur died. His presence in this story at the same time as Arthur is odd in itself. The only meaning of this can be satire; purposeful misguidance that the audience would have all noticed.
Owain and a couple other men are sitting with Arthur when Arthur asks Owain to play a game of chess with him. The name of the game was actually called gwyddbwyll. There is no record of what this game actually is, there is only speculation from different tales that include the game. Neither Owain or Arthur describe the game other than it being like chess. In this game the King piece is in the middle surrounded by four lesser kings and 12 ravens surround these five pieces. If this were the game that Arthur and Owain were playing then this would explain the naming of Owain’s troops, which were called ravens in the brandubh game. The game that they were playing on the board was being fought out on the battle field. There seems to be a commentary here on the nature of war. The generals get to sit back and play games with their soldiers while the soldiers are actually risking life and limb for the king.
While most of the story has been humorous or ironic this part is a rather serious commentary on war. War is just playing games with human life. The knights and the ravens were the soldiers of Owain and Arthur that were nothing more than pieces in a game. The lives of the men were just to be used by the generals. This portion of the text paints a dark picture of war.
Understanding that both Arthur and Owain were struggling for their men, that they both wanted to win, would explain the seeming negligence for their troops. They were not ignoring them while they were playing the game. The battle that was going on was their game; Arthur’s princes against Owain’s ravens. Arthur lost the game; he smashed all his remaining pieces save the rest of his men.
The explanation for the critical treatment of Arthur is not found simply within the text. Arthur is treated satirized because he is the previous “great king” of the Welsh. The legend must pale in comparison to the one being honored.
Llywelyn the Great was the next great leader of Wales and the grandson of Owain. Llywelyn’s rule was from the early 1200’s to 1240 when he died. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | The clues are properly spread throughout the story but the reader may not pick up on all of the meaning until the detective reveals all. Dupin gives a reveal in each of the detective tales but there is a moment of revelation in almost every Poe story. Cooney echo’s this theme in the movie; however, he adds more than one revelation to the movie to lead the viewers astray. The first revelation allows the viewer to think that they understand but in reality it is quite misleading. The second revelation is the big twist that explains the story in full. The biggest variance is for Cooney from Poe is the use of a pseudo revelation.
Death of a beautiful woman is probably one of Poe’s most recognizable characteristics. In almost every work that Poe has ever constructed there is a beautiful woman and who will likely die a horrible death. In “Berenice” she is buried alive, dug up, and then all of her teeth are pulled. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” Roderick Usher’s sister is sealed in her coffin before she is actually dead and claws her way out just to die of fatigue. “The Raven” is about the speaker’s love that has died and her absence is haunting him. Poe uses the theme of the death of a beautiful woman over and over again in poetry and story. In Identity one of the personalities sacrifices himself to save the beautiful woman. It seems that Cooney had another variance from Poe until the final revelation. After she is saved it seems as though all is well until the real killer shows up and kills her. Her death was tragic because the viewer is led to believe that she escaped to start a new life, but that life is quickly taken from her.
Cooney regurgitates themes from Poe throughout most of the screenplay. In fact were you to remove the elements which Poe originated then you would not have much of a movie at all. Poe virtually wrote this screenplay for Cooney. The themes were put together in a unique way but they were still taken from the same place. The criticism that has been published on Identity gives the credit of inspiration to many cinematic pieces which also owe some gratitude to Poe. Hitchcock is easily recognizable as someone who repeated Poe’s themes. Friday the 13th is a reference to the gory nature of some of the killings which Poe did as well. Ten Little Indians is a movie based on a novel by Agatha Christie where ten people are invited to an isolated place and killed one by one. The idea of Identity being a replication of Ten Little Indians falls short when the plot develops past ten people in an isolated place. While Ten Little Indians may be the framework for Identity, it is still teeming with allusions to Poe’s dark tales.
| 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | Quentin loses all hope in the future and in turn drives himself to the point of suicide. Dilsey, in stark contrast, is characterized by the Christian values of faith, hope and love. Her section takes place on Sunday and is charged with Christian images and the idea of forgiveness and rebirth. Quentin’s section was a downward spiral into the despair of his ever collapsing mind. Adamson draws the contrast of Quentin to Dilsey with their assessment of time.
Dilsey is the only character in the story that has a healthy grasp on the future. Quentin understands the future but cannot come to terms with it; he is helplessly stuck in the past. Dilsey is willing to redefine roles, willing to forgive, willing to move on into the future. Quentin cannot give up what once was for the possibility of what may be. He is stuck in this code of honor from which he cannot release himself or his sister Caddy. This role reversal is the major cause of the downward spiral that leads to Quentin’s death. Miller goes on to say, Quentin cannot change and it is that simple thing that separates him from Dilsey.
The way that Quentin and Dilsey view time differs as greatly as their perspectives on the future. Quentin views time as something that he must escape. He cannot cope with the inevitability. This fact is shown in the images that both Dilsey and Quentin see when they look at a clock. Time is something that Quentin cannot escape and he cannot forget. His sister Caddy has defied the moral code of the south, destroyed the family, and is the symbol of a social change.
Quentin begins to see time everywhere. The social change that he fears with the progression of time is even using Quentin himself, without his consent. He attempts to both control and stop time by smashing his watch. However, Quentin has failed to stop time; he has failed to prevent the digression of his family name, of the south.
Dilsey, as an African American woman, is the embodiment of change in the south. Dilsey is the amendment to the code of the south. Quentin cannot bring himself to see that this movement is not the death of the south but its rebirth. Caddy and Dilsey are not causing the collapse; the illegitimate moral codes of the south did that. Caddy and Dilsey only hope that there is for a future.
Time moves through Dilsey’s section of the story in the most coherent manner of the entire novel; there is a much better understanding of past and present. The flow of time is smooth in this unlike it has been in any other part of the book. There is a resolution introduced through forgiveness and unification that is communicated quite vividly through the message of Reverend Shegog.
This resoluteness from Quentin is the tragedy. He cannot adapt, grow, or function apart from his fixed image of the traditional south. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | Each of these characters play their part of Cooney’s interpretation of the human psychological makeup.
Cooney takes the idea of a psychological detective story from Poe’s work “The Mystery of Marie Roget”.
Similarly in Cooney’s movie there is very little happening in the real world, all of the action is taking place inside the mind of the convicted killer Malcolm Rivers. In the movie some characters black out and then find themselves in places where they don’t recognize. The theme of crimes committed without knowledge started with Poe in his story “Berenice”. The main character buries his cousin, then blacks out to wake and find that she was not dead until he dug her up and forcefully took her teeth. “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Black Cat” also explore the psychological instability of a killer. In “The Tell Tale Heart” the narrator says that he loves the man but cannot stand his “evil eye”. It is as if he has split himself into two persons, one who loves the old man and the other who hates the old man’s eye. The fragmented person that Poe writes about in the “The Tell Tale Heart” is echoed by the fragmented personalities that are seen in the movie Identity.
The theme of a crime in a locked room, or impossible crime, comes from Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” where a mother and her daughter are murdered in a room that was locked from the inside. Poe uses this theme to make his stories more cryptic. Instantly the reader is faced with a seemingly impossible puzzle. They are then given clues so they can attempt to solve the crime before detective in the story. Cooney’s adaptation of this theme is more interesting then the others. He takes more liberty from Poe then he did on most of the other themes.
Cooney has two impossible crimes set up in the story. The characters are trapped in a motel in the middle of the desert. They cannot escape on any roads and when they try to run away they end up back at the motel. Secondly, as each person dies they find room keys in descending order from 10, even when the person seemingly dies from an accident. Both of these devices are revealed as mechanisms in the mind of the schizophrenic Malcolm Rivers. They are crimes within a locked room and the locked room is Malcolm’s mind. In this theme Cooney takes Poe’s theme further than Poe took it because of advancements in the field of psychology with the ability to recognize and sometimes treat mental illness. Poe did, however, recognize mental illness as a possible cause of such behavior in the story “The Tell Tale Heart”. In the story the narrator begins by telling the reader that he is not crazy, that his sickness has actually made him stronger.
Another of Poe’s tools was to reveal the clues that helped solve the case. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
tt | In this alter call he began praying/prophesying over everyone, and as he progressed in the prayer line he found himself standing in front of a larger black lady. He stops for a moment puts his quarter folded hanky over his mouth and looks intently into her eyes. As he spoke to her this lady broke down and began to cry, and the words he spoke were, “Miss, at night, when you sleep, two demons come into your room, and they fondle your breasts. Their names are incubus and succubus.” I am so glad that the Demonic powers have taken up breast fondling as a hobby. You know I always wondered what demons did with their free time, now I know.
Please do not look on this history with anything but sober judgment. I do not ask for your ridicule I do not ask for your praise, I ask for you to know yourself. Your history has made you who you are, but you determine your future.
The Dream of Rhonabwy is barely recognizable part of the Arthurian legend. It is a text that is often disregarded because critics cannot agree on how to interpret the story. Arthur is characterized unlike anything else in the body of work we have on Arthur. In most of the texts that we have that reference Arthur he is acknowledged as a great military leader. King Arthur is recognized as the greatest knight in the history of Chivalry. Lancelot, Gawain, and Kay are all great and recognizable knights but they are all referred to as King Arthur’s knights or the Knights of the Round Table. If Arthur is such a well respected knight king then why would the author characterize the great British/Welsh emperor in such an unkind manner? It is because the author is drawing a satirical picture of Arthur.
The Dream of Rhonabwy, as it has been interpreted, has some difficult language. It is not easy to understand exactly what the author is trying to say unless you examine it closely. In a district of Wales called Powys, lived two brothers whose father was one of the princes of Wales. Their father died and the oldest child, Madawc, took command of the district and the youngest child was jealous. The younger child Iorwerth, of whom we have no historical records, decides to raid England, pillaging the land and gaining political standing. The older brother does not want the younger to make the English angry so he sends out 300 men to find his brother. Rhonabwy is one of the men that are sent out to find and stop Iorwerth. Rhonabwy and his men stay in a rundown house and Rhonabwy sleeps on a yellow calfskin which induces visions; the dream begins.
The part of the story before the dream begins is historically accurate, save for Iorwerth. Both Madwac his father Maredudd are historical figures. These people are the chief reasons critics debate what year The Dream of Rhonabwy was written. | 28 | English | male | Post Grad | Teacher | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
l |
From this point, I can use a fake Facebook profile I’ve created to add her (A few friendly tips: browse Mafia Wars and Farmville groups, you’ll find hundreds of people advertising themselves for friends in an attempt to gain more ‘neighbors’ or ‘mobsters’, and at first glance, anybody will think you simply have 400 legitimate friends. Another piece of advice is to browse her friends list, especially her comment wall, and find people with a lot of Facebook friends. Try to narrow it down to people who give off the vibe that they add almost everybody who sends a request, and it’s exponentially more likely that she’s going to add someone with seventeen mutual friends. Another good genre of people to target are her family members, so search her friends list with people for her last name), and then use that Facebook friendship to mine more information from her, including her email, IM account names, address, and personal phone numbers. This is the simplest way to access information hidden behind profile privacy settings, and is a practically idiot-proof technique.
So, now that we’ve acquired a lot of useful details about our new friend, how do we put it all to good use? The first step will be to gain access to their email. Try to log in to their email address with one of the common passwords used, like ‘password’ for example. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it actually will! Now, you can try every word in the dictionary, but that’s not a very efficient way to go about wrecking lives. You’re about to make the password-reset function your friend. Armed with the information you need, you’re an unstoppable force of Internature.
Please enter your birthday. Check.
Please enter your area code. Check
What is your favorite sports team? A-ha!
This is when we go back to her Facebook page and hope everything matches up. Scour status updates, comments, groups, fan pages, photos, and try to find it. On one of the photos you might see her wearing a sports-logo emblazoned sweater, or a status update about a sporting event outcome she was (un)happy with. This part is more organic and requires intuition, perseverance, and a good eye for spotting clues.
So, now you’re in. What next? Your first step will be a search for the phrase “password”, hopefully there are account verifications that send the username and password in plain text format. Most people stupidly use the same password for every account, excepting when numbers may be required, which usually just means there’s a ‘1’ at the end. Myspace accounts are the best for this, because instead of sending a password reset email with a link to change it, they send an email with the password right there inside of it. If you had to reset the password to the email in order to gain access, it’s usually a smart move to then change the email password to whatever the Myspace password is.
| 23 | English | male | Some college | Student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
l | This only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes, portraying Americans as overweight slobs who live and die on their sofa-beds, their only physical activity being a button press to change channels. This is a baseless lie. Of course exceptions exist, but the unified image of an entire nation of people into a simple lump describable in two words or less is more harmful than television could ever hope to be in its darkest days. Failing to see shades of grey in ideas and beliefs is a stain upon humanity’s nature, and as common as it may be, terrible things have and will continue to come from it. Moral ambiguity is there, it just takes a reflection on the situation and a level of critical thinking that may, unfortunately, be beyond the scope of some peoples’ will to see.
*The reason I use “books” here instead of “reading” as a medium is because the person I quote never said explicitly that watching TV is bad for you, although they implied its conclusion. My argument would remain largely unchanged if they had. I chose focus on television as a broadcast device and creative outlet.
Every so often I look at the condition of the world and I suspect that the most widespread problem we have is the ever-growing sentiment of anti-intellectualism that infiltrates every aspect of our society. This rampant disease is never so prevalent as it has been with the recent generation of teenagers, and having grown up surrounded neck-deep in the filth of Gen-X, I can safely say my belief is that most, if not all, of the issues faced by humans aged 12-20 stem not only from cultural influences, peer pressure, or a desire to be accepted by their friends; they suffer from an incurable BRAIN DISEASE known as “Teenager-ism”.
Teenagers pride themselves on this disease, reveling in their ignorance and glorifying themselves on their uncommonly high levels of Stupidity. They go beyond what the average person would consider a healthy level of moronic stupor. Now, over the years I’ve upheld a single conviction, steadfast through all the doubters and disbelievers I’d encountered, and until today it’s been purely speculation. This conviction is that being a teenager is an inoperable affliction, treatable only by the passing of time or the arrival of death.
Certainly, I am not the first person to ever hold this hypothesis.
It appears we’ve spent countless lifetimes ignoring the warning signs, failing to prepare for war against a foe with the capacity to end our lives simply by ending their own. No, I don’t mean suicide-bombing Al Qaeda terrorists or Japanese kamikaze pilots; I mean Teenagers, an enemy whose primary goal is the degradation of our society into something hardly discernable from the future seen in the film Idiocracy; a world where the finest literature is found scrawled on the inside walls of bathroom stalls.
| 23 | English | male | Some college | Student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
l | They continue to become less and less a tool of democracy to govern and appease the people than they develop into a lobbying tool used to pad the pockets of big-business leaders. They also begin to heavily influence media and news outlets, which forces those institutions who wish to stay in business to ignore scandalous stories or those that negatively portray those in power.
With the youth in revolt and angry at the elders for being out of touch, inhumane, racist towards minorities, or any other (valid) concern, the younger generation begins boycotting school, the number of teenagers becoming involved in gangs rises and also takes place at younger and younger ages, and Elvis Presley shakes his hips on national television. The government, in response, passes the B.R. Act of 2010, which takes one eight-grade public school class each year and sends them to a deserted island. Each student is randomly assigned a weapon, and let loose to roam the island unsupervised. The students are given three days to kill their classmates or they themselves will be killed. At the end of the three days, the survivor is taken home and allowed to live. This act is passed with the intent of using negative reinforcement on the general child/teenage populous to make them begin acting appropriately. The citizens are promised that, if gang violence lowers significantly and truancy levels lower similarly, the act will be revoked.
The world that we live in today is filled with uncertainty. We don’t know how much food will cost tomorrow; we don’t know how expensive our gas prices will be or how much the cost of crude oil will rise; due to global warming we don’t even know what the temperature will reach; and most importantly, we don’t know whether or not Miley Cyrus will finally issue an apology to the public for her risqué cover photo that she posed for in Vanity Fair. We also don’t know what’s going through the minds of our elected officials. The Clintons campaigned on a platform of healthcare reform, Alberto Gonzales promised us justice, Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig forgot to mention that in his off time he liked to solicit sex from young boys in public bathroom stalls, and George Bush swore on a bible to maintain sanity. All lies. Since the 1980s we’ve been in a state of manufactured democracy, going back and forth from George Bush to Bill Clinton to George Bush again and nearly back to a Clinton (fingers crossed for an Obama election), with only the illusion of democracy keeping the public complacent. The blueprints are nearly complete, and the pieces set in place for a fascist state to overthrow our country. And us, here, on a local basis? We wouldn’t even take the time to look up from our People Magazine and our American Idol to notice, let alone take a stand.
| 23 | English | male | Some college | Student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
l | The shadow-journalists hired by the government’s PR department were led on a three-hour staged tour through the premises of three prison camps, including Camp Delta, Camp V, and Camp X-Ray. The result of these guided tours: a bevy of positive spin within the mainstream media outlets, and major television broadcasts that might as well have been written by Donald Rumsfeld.
Now that we’ve shown why government powers would become corrupt, let’s examine several of the hows that they could implement to achieve their goals. With a well of pop-culture trivia knowledge so deep that it would make the Mariana Trench blush, I’ve been able to imagine several possible scenarios, and the tactics that would be used to achieve them.
In true V for Vendetta fashion, powerful government officials with ties to pharmaceutical companies could create a disease, and then control the manufacturing and distribution of the antidote. With the entire country- possibly even the world- buying their products, the stockholders in that company would become immensely wealthy almost overnight. We’ll call this concept the ‘Lego Rule’, as its factors are practically interchangeable with a never-ending exchange of different components. All that it takes is to switch the pharmaceutical companies with oil companies, and have the government nationalize the country’s oil refineries. In many ways the idea of nationalization has already snagged its filthy claws into our society’s rug. For example, as a product of the climate of fear that overtook the populous after the September 11th terrorist attacks, the government has taken advantage of our willingness to sacrifice liberty for safety and instilled the TSA as sole power over our nation’s airplane safety regulations.
This scenario is probably the most likely of all of them to actually happen. In fact, it already has. One only needs to take a quick glance at Vice President Dick Cheney’s ties to Halliburton, and Halliburton’s ties to the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, to realize that something fishy is going on.
With the population showing record-high levels of political dissent, the bigwigs in their spacesuits at the White House cut budgetary spending on education and dedicate an overwhelming majority of the national budget on ‘defense contracts’ (see: Halliburton) and military spending. With its citizens showing a decreased level of interest in pursuing higher education and college degrees, those who do are labeled as ‘elitists’ and ostracized in regular society. Being labeled as an intellectual becomes as derogatory a term as ‘racist’ is in today’s current society. The social stigma attached to it affects ones personal standing amongst civilized people as severely as being an atheist affects your chances of being elected president of the United States. As concern over, and attention paid, to the availability of public data fades, the government pushes for a tiered internet model, hoping to limit the availability of information to regular citizens and deterring those who may express concern against their suspicious practices. | 23 | English | male | Some college | Student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
l | I will take my future into my own hands and shape it according to my own high standards, never again feeling like a slave to the claustrophobic, monotonous nightmare of high school.
“It’s pretty hard to live when someone steals your identity and cleans out your bank account.”
If I so desired, I could ruin your life. It’s not even difficult, either. If you provide me with an active internet connection and thirty minutes, there’s almost nothing that I can’t find. Technology is invasive, silently leaking its cold, metallic syrup into the cracks of our lives while we remain blissfully unaware of the consequences.
First thing’s first: Choose your mark. This target of electronic molestation, ideally, maintains a regular online presence on at least one social network. If this isn’t the case, though, don’t worry. It will take a little bit more time and utilization of more advanced techniques, but invading their sacred privacy is still relatively simple. A good first start is to remember that any Google search result page contains a treasure-trove of information, as long you know how to navigate its (often obtuse) pathways.
Now that you’ve acquired a potential victim, it’s time to do your homework. Do they have a Facebook page? A Myspace page? Twitter? Photobucket? Youtube? What forums do they post on? A quick Google search for their name will reveal a lot, but probably not everything. If all that you know is their name, locate them on Facebook and Myspace. Scan their pages for any information. Facebook has strict privacy options, so it’s possible that you’ll be unable to glean any immediately useful information, but remember that all information is valuable if you know how to use it properly.
Let’s examine some of the information available via a standard non-friend Facebook profile. By clicking on a random person’s profile, I can see her birth date, hometown, groups that she’s a member of, all of her photos and any photo that she’s been tagged in by friends, her entire friends list, and her comment wall. All of this is useful, but the greatest information mine, by far, is the comment wall. From there, I can follow conversations and status updates to access (hopefully) everything I need. On the comment wall I find someone’s cell phone number with a message “Call me and we’ll hang out again!” I make a note of it, as well as the commenter’s profile, and continue on.
From here we have a decent amount of information. Doing a few more Google searches reveals the school that she graduated from, as well as the year. I cross-reference other names in her class with her Facebook friends list and come up with fifteen concurrent matches. A few minutes spent investigating their Facebook pages reveals four more cell phone numbers (Don’t these people know it’s dangerous to post personal information publicly like this? Sheesh!).
| 23 | English | male | Some college | Student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
l |
The standard misconception of equating a typical high school experience with post-schooling success is an exercise in flawed logic. When a student feels unmotivated by the offered curriculum, it should be the duty of his counselor to help him seek new avenues of expression and education. This is not merely a hypothetical situation; I feel constrained and disappointed by the education afforded to me at Ukiah High School. Budget cuts have forced teachers and faculty out of jobs, extinguishing morale throughout our campus. The first subjects killed were art and music, followed by closing the library. The library, a cornerstone of education, crushed under the heel of oppressive budgetary constraints. High school is quickly becoming a failed institution, its welcome long overstayed. Any subject not deemed “important” by advocates of worldwide neo-Con consumerist brainwashing is murdered in cold blood, its corpse shoved into a rolled-up carpet and tossed into the Russian river. It’s this greed and pretentiousness that pressures children forced through the tunnel of standardized education into growing up and becoming retail parasites, accountants, the walking dead. This is not my destiny.
Surrounded by the disenfranchised youth I wander, losing my sanity in the ever-thickening crowds of angry teenagers. Amidst hundreds of hostile strangers, an increasingly high gang population, racist cowboys and hostile, insecure jocks eager to prove to their twirpy girlfriends that picking on somebody is tantamount to proving their manhood in a Roman gladiatorial ring, I stand alone. The library is no longer open, a former sanctum of the intelligentsia, a pillar of free-thought and monument to our right of openly distributed information, is hardly recognizable after merciless dismemberment by fascists seeking to control the flow of information. We, as high school students, are taught by so-called community leaders that questioning authority is unpatriotic, that learning anything not governed by a school board is off-limits. I scream unto the darkness, I shed my own blood as armor, I fashion a sword from my own bone and use it to fight this evil propaganda.
Scan through your high school yearbook and randomly select a handful of your peers. How many of them led successful, personally fulfilling lives? Compare your selections to the following list I’ve assembled: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers. The members of this group excelled in their respective fields of study by following their passions to the fullest extent possible. In order to do this, they were home-schooled. Of course, the education system back then wasn’t as sophisticated or complex as it is now, which is why Independent Study is the best possible option. I will reap the benefits of a high school education at my own accelerated pace, while still challenging myself by using my time to its fullest extent, still under the supervision and guidance of a teacher. I will be attending several college classes, learning valuable life skills, strengthening my education, my creativity, and my individuality. | 23 | English | male | Some college | Student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
l | It begins the moment that complacency takes over and it becomes unreasonable to be emotionally, mentally, or physically invested in the world that exists beyond the mall doors.
Step 1: Exterminate every single living teenager in the world (for maximum efficiency, substitute the word ‘world’ with ‘universe’).
Step 2: Put a stop to female fertility, ending the problem of babies (thus in turn also ending the problem of Teenagers).
Step 3: Clone intelligent, healthy adults, thereby continuing the human race ad infinitum at our evolutionary peak and putting an end to the most dangerous threat in mankind’s history.
Granted, I am not (technically) a doctor, so my understanding of the cloning process is limited to what I’ve read on imascientist.com. But in layman’s terms, in order to clone someone all that you need is a Genetic Replicator, a Willing Test Subject, and a little dash of Imagination.
Once in a while, everything in the world changes at once. This is one of those times.
I hate writing. I don’t mean writing as in the verb form of ‘to write,’ or the specific act of putting words to paper (or to screen, as it is these days). I mean the science that it’s become, the colour-by-numbers formula that we’re told, both by teachers and critics, is necessary to create a worthwhile composition. Well, I’m not buying it. I consistently hear, day in and day out, that structureis necessary; that there’s a specific framework to follow in order to have an acceptably paced story; that I need to follow these rules and take these steps in order to succeed; and that disobeying the guidelines can (and will) only result in catastrophe.
Your main character must be sympathetic. If they’re not “nice”, pile on some undeserved misfortune.
The character’s desire must be clear, compelling, and urgent.
Not to seem rude, and I realize that someone actually paid a ‘professional writer’ a truckload of money for this advice, but I find these utterly stupid, invalid suggestions.
In the stories that I enjoy most, the characters’ motivations are rarely, if ever at all, explained in perfect, pristine detail throughout. I find it leagues more interesting and engaging when the characters’ actions or motivations are morally ambiguous, and while it might (might being the operative word, since it isn’t a requirement even) seem like there’s a quintessential cookie-cutter Good Guy and Evil Guy, their agendas are both shrouded in shades of grey. This sort of mindset goes against everything that the writer of these storybook-protocols stands for.
While we're reading and critiquing other peoples’ manuscripts in the Creative Writing class that I’m taking (taught by author Jody Gehrman), a recurring theme that I notice being brought up by class members is ‘explanation’. The theory that I’ve established is this: simple-minded people need every aspect of a story interpreted for them, each nook and cranny explored and dissected and given clear reason. | 23 | English | male | Some college | Student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
l | I have been able to scientifically establish that they are so shallow and ignorant that they honestly cannot handle the responsibility of taking any meaning out of a story that isn’t neatly handed to them on a silver platter. Ambiguity, obscurity, irony, innuendo; these are devices used by clever and intelligent writers in acute, imaginative ways, and I strongly feel that they shouldn’t be understated by some shmuck with a pencil and notebook who thinks he’s Hemmingway. We don’t need each side-character mentioned in the story to have an unseen influence on the nerdy kid getting picked on by a bully; we don’t need each individual that enters the bathroom to personally know and be familiar with the woman hiding her well-meaning boyfriend in the stall; we don’t need hidden motivations for the consoling gentleman at a funeral (though I stand by the fact that my idea of a Quantum Leap-esque twist at the end where it turns out that he’s her father from an alternate timeline coming back to redeem himself (in his own eyes, that is) would at least be entertaining); and we don’t need to know how the dead man arguing with Saint Peter over what constitutes Good-Enough-For-Heaven behavior became injured. These are not the points of the story!
Antagonist’s commitment and ability to stop our hero must be equal to protagonist’s commitment and ability to get what they want.
Stakes must be life or death – or so high that they might as well be.
Obviously the writer of these Essential Guidelines for Proper Storytelling has never watched an episode of Seinfeld.
What I take away from these story-construction schematics isn’t that this direction is the correct one. In fact, what I extract from it constitutes the polar opposite: that no matter what I write, no matter what the subject or topic or story it is that I’m penning, I am obligated by the Gods of Language to avoid these pillars of cliché storytelling like a balloon avoids a needle. What do you get when you follow an already established, standard textbook formula? Everybody Loves Raymond. What do you get when you tread new ground, when you grasp unwaveringly and hold securely onto the essence of your individuality, the style that defines who you are, what you represent, and what makes you you? The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, A Tale Of Two Sisters, The Catcher In The Rye. Three wildly different examples of narrative with one simple trait binding them all together: the creators of each embraced their unique personality, they each held steadfast to their vision regardless of what was considered “essential” to clever storytelling, and every single one was a successful and groundbreaking work of art.
I admit it; I’m a selfish writer, and I write selfish stories. The pace is dictated by me, and if I want an irrelevant tangent here, I’ll put an irrelevant tangent here. | 23 | English | male | Some college | Student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
l |
According to the nation’s top scientists (as seen on PBS’ Pulitzer Prize winning ‘Inside the Teenage Brain’), the teenage state is nothing more than another stage of child development. While a child is in the womb, he or she undergoes substantial changes of brain development at an incredibly rapid pace. This phenomenon is recreated a bit over a decade later during puberty. During this stage of their life, they display several common symptoms:
An inability to comprehend causation or consequences for his or her actions,
Unhealthy sleeping habits,
A sudden interest in wearing backward hats or cargo shorts, and
Loss of ability to formulate coherent thoughts. This symptom is often paired with repetitious usage of the words ‘dude’, ‘bro’, and ‘sweet’.
However, with proper treatment, these symptoms can be avoided. I realize this does not seem possible; it did not seem possible to me, either. But this is the crux of my genius. The secret lies in attacking the virus before it infects the brain, before the frontal cortex succumbs to the Evil Will of the Teenage Years. I call my treatment the ‘Use It or Lose It’ technique. Its magic lies in programming the child while in the early stages of brain development into a set routine, forming a schedule consisting of a daily regiment of brainteasers, math problems, hand-eye coordination tests, and a healthy dose of naptime. If we don’t enforce this type of regiment upon them, the behavior exhibited by teenagers today will continue, placing every person alive in extreme, immediate danger, and this is a problem. It is not a problem in the way that global warming is a problem, nor is it a problem in the way throat cancer is a problem. It is a problem in the way that the fact we may eventually one day go to war against the machines (as portrayed in I, Robot or the Terminator trilogy) is a problem. So long as we set the teenagers onto this strict, linear pathway through life, we can let out our held breath and ease back into our seats, comfortable in the fact that our worries are no longer based on whether or not our future generations are going to screw things up worse than we already have.
The largest hurdle faced by the ‘Use It or Lose It’ technique is encountering a child unwilling to follow orders, a ‘free spirited’ pre-teen whose primary concern in life isn’t the Greater Good, but yo-yo tricks and hair gel. And that, I think, is where a simple brain disease ends and Armageddon begins.
I have no idea where you, my loyal reader, happen to stand on the issue of human cloning, and over the course of this paper I’ve avoided the topic in order to (a) help you understand the dilemma at hand, and to (b) present the least complicated treatment before I unveil the only solution that can assuredly end the infestation of Teenagers upon our precious soil. | 23 | English | male | Some college | Student | Y,Y,Y,Y,Y |
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